Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

NEW WRIT.

For Borough of Sheffield (Brightside Division), in the room of Arthur Augustus William Henry Ponsonby, esquire (called up to the House of Peers).—[Mr. T. Kennedy.]

TRADE AND NAVIGATION.

Accounts ordered,
relating to trade and navigation of the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1930."—[Mr. William Graham.]

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

SITUATION.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make a statement of the present position of affairs in China and particularly at Shanghai and Nanking?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): My information is that the general condition in China is at the moment peaceful, and that the situation in Shanghai and Nanking is normal. It is reported that fighting has broken out again on the Tientsin Pukow railway, but the extent and significance of this is not yet known.

Sir K. WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to make any statement with regard to the rather grave question that has arisen in China, the question of extra-territorial rights?

Mr. HENDERSON: That question does not arise out of the answer.

BOXER INDEMNITY.

Mr. COCKS: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the reason for the delay in settling the question of the disposal of the Boxer Indemnity, the balance of which is to be returned to China; and whether he intends to take any steps to expedite this matter?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The conversations of last June between His Majesty's Minister and the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs were inconclusive. The Chinese Government expressed the desire to invest the bulk of the funds in the completion of the Canton-Hankow Railway. This proposal brought to the fore questions of pre-existing agreements and obligations which have required careful consideration and have delayed progress towards satisfactory arrangements regarding the indemnity. New proposals are now under discussion between His Majesty's Minister and the Chinese Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

BRITISH SUBJECTS (PASSPORTS).

Sir K. WOOD: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, consequent upon the exchange of ambassadors with Soviet Russia, it is now proposed, in the case of applicants for passports desiring to proceed to Russia, to withdraw the general warning that such applicants enter the territories of the Soviet Union at their own risk?

Mr. MILLS: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if it is now proposed to withdraw the prohibitive notice hitherto tendered to business men and others who contemplated visiting Russia, in view of the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Union of Soviet Republics?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: As a result of the resumption of full diplomatic relations with the Government of the Soviet Union, instructions have been issued to the effect that the passports of British subjects desiring to proceed to the Union can now be endorsed for that country: the prohibitive notice in question has been withdrawn.

Sir K. WOOD: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has satisfied himself that people will be able to enter
Russia with perfect liberty and freedom and without the apprehension of any harm coming to them?

Mr. MILLS: May I ask whether there is in the records of the Foreign Office any instance of any business man who has gone there who has not come through with perfect safety to himself?

Sir K. WOOD: May I ask for a reply to my question?

Mr. HENDERSON: I do not think there is anything to reply to.

Sir K. WOOD: Perhaps I may put it in another way. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable apprehension, having regard to things that have taken place in Russia, and has he satisfied himself—

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I would like to ask him if it is not the case that the relations between us and Russia never were more friendly than they are to-day? Next question?

Sir K. WOOD: May I ask for a reply-to my question?

HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

PROPAGANDA.

Mr. ALBERY: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is now satisfied that the Soviet Ambassador and Soviet Government put the same interpretation as His Majesty's Government on the mutual agreement concerning propaganda; and if there has been, as a result, any definite improvement in this respect?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: With regard to the first part of the question I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) on the 23rd December. With regard to the second part of the question, it is too early as yet to form any conclusion as to the definite effect of the agreement concluded about propaganda.
I should, however, add that, although His Majesty's Government are not without hope that the agreement recently entered into will result in a permanent improvement, a message from the Third
International, which appeared in a daily paper on the 1st January, led me to inform the Soviet Ambassador that such action was calculated to impede that improvement in the relations, between the two countries which the impending negotiations had as their object. For the present His Majesty's Government do not propose to take further action.

Mr. ALBERY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what connection there is between the Third International and the "Daily Worker"?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am afraid I cannot.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether the Soviet Ambassador agreed with the suggestion made by him that they were responsible for the activities of the Comintern, as shown in the periodical which he quotes?

Mr. HENDERSON: No, I have not asked him that question.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Has any answer been given on behalf of the Soviet Government to the right hon. Gentleman's stern reprimand?

Mr. HENDERSON: No; I did not give a stern reprimand.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Was there any answer?

Sir W. DAVISON: May we know if any answer was given?

Mr. KIRKWOOD: How many supplementaries is the hon. Member to get?

Captain CROOKSHANK: 41.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Dominions have expressed satisfaction with the declarations regarding propaganda in their territories made by the Soviet Government?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Lunn): I have been asked to reply. The notes exchanged with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics regarding the applicability to the Dominions of the undertakings in respect of propaganda were framed after consultation with His Majesty's Governments in the Dominions.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Will the hon. Gentleman arrange to have this correspondence published?

Mr. LUNN: That question has been put on a number of occasions and the answer was given on 6th, 11th and 19th November. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman looks in the records, he will find that we have no intention of publishing the correspondence.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Can the hon. Gentleman, when he says that this was done after consultation, say whether the Dominions approved of it or not?

Mr. LUNN: The Dominion Governments were not asked to express satisfaction or otherwise.

HON. MEMBERS: Did they?

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Does the hon. Gentleman approve of secret diplomacy?

BRITISH EMBASSY, MOSCOW (ACCOMMODATION).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements have been made for housing the British Ambassador in Moscow?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The Embassy offices and clerical staff are at present housed in a building taken by His Majesty's Government on a lease expiring annually and renewable on the 31st July next. The Ambassador and his diplomatic staff are at present living in the Savoy Hotel. Negotiations for a suitable residence and office accommodation are now in progress.

Sir K. WOOD: In the interval, is special care being taken of the records of the British Government?

Mr. THURTLE: Is it not a fact that the diplomat and his staff in Moscow are extremely comfortable?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the British Ambassador is satisfied with his present position in the matter of housing?

Mr. HENDERSON: rose
—

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Cocks.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

DIPLOMATIC SERVICE (INDIANS).

Major POLE: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Indians are eligible for appointment as diplomatic representatives in any Asiatic country or elsewhere; and whether any Indian has been appointed to any such post?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The Regulations prescribe that candidates for the Diplomatic Service must be natural-born British subjects, and born within the United Kingdom or in one of the self-governing Dominions of parents also born within those territories.

FOREIGN OFFICE (EX-ELEMENTAEY SCHOOLBOYS).

Mr. MORLEY: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what percentage of the personnel of the Foreign Office and diplomatic services consists of ex-elementary schoolboys?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: Inquiries respecting members of the Service admitted before the War would entail an excessive amount of labour, but I have caused inquiries to be made regarding candidates admitted since the War and I have found that roughly six per cent. were ex-elementary schoolboys.

Mr. MORLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to formulate such conditions of entry to the Service as will ensure that it shall be more representative of the entire people and less of one class?

Mr. HENDERSON: I think the examination is exactly on all fours with other kinds of examinations for the Civil Service, except for one subject, and that is languages.

NEW GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, EDINBURGH.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: 24.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether in view of the opposition, not only in Edinburgh but throughout Scotland, to his proposal that only one design, that of the chief architect of his Department, should be submitted to the Scottish Fine Art Commission, he will consent either to hold an open competition or himself to appoint an architect, after consulting the Commission, the Edinburgh Corporation, and representative bodies interested in the architecture and amenities of the city?

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): The decision to entrust the design of the building on the Calton Jail site, Edinburgh, to the chief architect of my Department, was taken nearly two years ago, and I am not prepared, at this late stage, to reverse that decision either in favour of an open competition or an independent architect. I should like to point out that the policy of selecting an architect for important national buildings by open competition has been adopted only in four cases during the last 150 years. In only one instance has the successful design been carried into execution. The appointment of an independent architect would not appear to meet the objection to the consideration of only one design to which the hon. and gallant Member refers.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Is it not the fact that evidence was given before a Committee of this House that, in the case of buildings of great importance, an official architect was not insisted upon by the right hon. Gentleman's Department; is it not also the fact that, although this decision may have been come to, as the right hon. Gentleman says, two years ago, it is only within recent months that the public have become aware of it, and that very strong feeling has developed upon it in Scotland; and will not the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, give the question further consideration?

Mr. LANSBURY: I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is really misinformed on the matter. There were considerable negotiations many months ago with the Edinburgh Corporation on this subject, and, at the end of those prolonged negotiations, an agreement was arrived at by which the work of preparing plans and so on was to be proceeded with. The plans are to be submitted to the Scottish Fine Art Commission for their advice on them—not for their approval, because they are only an advisory body—but there is also an agreement with the Edinburgh Corporation that these drawings will be submitted to them, and, if they are not approved by the Edinburgh Corporation, either the Government accept that disapproval or they go to arbitration. I do not think that any fair-minded person would want us to go back on that position.

Major WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this is a very exceptional
site, and that arrangements made with regard to other buildings should not and do not really apply to this particular site?

Mr. LANSBURY: I have read this matter up at very great length, and I would like to assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that all these considerations were taken into account before the agreement which I have mentioned was come to; and I would like again to assure Scottish Members of this House that the Office of Works and their officials have no intention whatever of injuring the amenities of the City of Edinburgh.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

EXPORT CREDITS (RUSSIA).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir GODFREY DALRYMPLE-WHITE: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Russian Government has, through its trading organisations, obtained by means of the Export Credits Department the guarantee of the British Government; and whether steps will be taken to prevent the credit of the British Government being thus enjoyed by the Russian Government in respect to its purchase of British goods?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: Under the Export Credits Scheme the guarantee of the British Government is given, not to foreign Governments, but to British exporters in respect of certain of their transactions with foreign countries. Exports to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which were previously excluded from the operation of the scheme, were brought within it as from the 1st August, 1929, as stated by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, in reply to a question in this House on the 25th July.

Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Can the right hon. Gentleman deny that the British Government are giving their guarantee under the Export Credits insurance scheme to the holders of Soviet Government bills and that if the Soviet Government default upon those bills the British Government will be called upon to pay?

Mr. HENDERSON: I have given my answer.

Mr. SAMUEL: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the answer he has given is contrary to the facts stated by the Secretary of Overseas Trade Department yesterday?

Mr. W. J. BROWN: Is it not the case that the present situation is that the Soviet Government is placed in precisely the same position as any other, and that past experience shows that there is considerably less liability to default on the part of that Government than on the part of others?

Mr. HENDERSON: That is so.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House any indication of the amount of these guarantees?

Mr. HENDERSON: I must have notice of that question.

Sir W. DAVISON: This is a matter of very great importance. In the event of the Russian Government failing to pay for any of these goods, will the British Government be responsible?

Mr. HENDERSON: No, Sir.

Mr. SAMUEL: May I be allowed to press the right hon. Gentleman on this point? After what he has just said, will he tell us the position of the British holders of insured Soviet bills in case of default, if the British Government are not responsible?

Mr. HENDERSON: That is a hypothetical question.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance—

Mr. SPEAKER: These questions do not arise out of the answer which has been given.

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD (POLICY).

Mr. MANDER: 16.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether it is the policy of the Empire Marketing Board to advise the public not to purchase any goods from outside the confines of the British Empire except when this cannot be avoided; and whether this policy has the approval of the Government?

Mr. LUNN: The policy of the Empire Marketing Board, which is approved by
the Government, is to invite the public, in so far as price and quality are satisfactory, to choose first the produce of the home country and next the produce of the Empire countries overseas.

Mr. MANDER: Do I understand from the hon. Gentleman's reply that, if articles can be purchased from within the British Empire, no purchases should take place from any foreign country?

Mr. LUNN: The hon. Member will understand quite clearly that preference should be given to home or Empire goods.

Mr. MANDER: May I ask whether, supposing that all the articles can be purchased in the British Empire, then the Government advise that no purchases should take place from foreign countries?

Mr. LUNN: Provided that the price of the article and the quality are satisfactory, we think that all purchases might be within the Empire.

Mr. LEIF JONES: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of inviting people to sell British goods as well as to buy them?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the Under-Secretary ask the right hon. Gentleman who puts that question to give that advice to his own supporters?

PALESTINE.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: 15.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has yet received definite information that the 16 or 17 Jewish colonies, which at the time of the recent outbreak were in possession of their arms under the colony defence scheme, still retain this means of defence; and whether he is yet in a position to make a statement as to means which are to be adopted for the future defence of the colonies and for the maintenance of law and order throughout Palestine?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Drummond Shiels): The High Commissioner for Palestine has reported that with five exceptions, the Jewish Colonies in question still retain the arms which were in their custody in sealed armouries at the outbreak of the disturbances. As regards the five Colonies no longer retaining
their original armouries, in one (Ekron) the number of arms has been reduced from 10 to 6; three Colonies (Hulda, Artuf and Kustinieh) have been evacuated, and in one of these three cases the arms have been transferred to a neighbouring Colony (Katra); in the other two cases the arms have been returned to police headquarters; as regards the fifth Colony (Jisr Majamie) the armoury is no longer necessary as troops are now stationed there.
As regards the second part of the question, detailed proposals for the future defence of Jewish colonies in Palestine are now under consideration. In the meantime, measures of immediate urgency are being concerted, and the High Commissioner has authorised Government grants towards the cost of providing roads to give access to outlying Colonies. In connection with the Palestine Police, for which an additional 200 British constables are now being recruited, the Secretary of State has decided to send Mr. H. L. Dowbiggin, Inspector-General of Police, Ceylon, on temporary deputation to Palestine for the purpose of advising on police organisation. Mr. Dowbiggin is due to arrive in Palestine on the 27th January.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

MILK PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN.

Mr. HURD: 17.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what arrangements have been made for more intensive milk publicity under grant from the Empire Marketing Board?

Mr. LUNN: No further arrangements have been made for this purpose.

GERMAN WHEAT (IMPORTS).

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: 26.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any proposals to make with regard to the importation of bounty-fed wheat from Germany?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Noel Buxton): Advantage was taken of a recent meeting of agricultural experts at Geneva, invited by the Economic Committee of the League of
Nations, to raise through the British representative the question of the effect of the import bond system as applied to cereals on agricultural producers in this and other countries. I am informed that the statement by the British representative was sympathetically received by the representative of Germany, who promised full co-operation with any inquiry which the Economic Committee of the League will institute.

Mr. LEIF JONES: Does the right hon. Gentleman still consider that any wheat that is imported from Germany can properly be described as bounty-fed?

Mr. BUXTON: The term is inaccurate, but is used to convey the sense.

Oral Answers to Questions — AVIATION.

PARACHUTES.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: 19.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether the provision of parachutes for crews of sea-going service aircraft is considered a matter of urgency; and if he will state for how long experiments with this equipment provision have been carried on, and when the present trials are likely to be concluded?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Montague): The provision of parachutes for the crews of aircraft when flying over the sea is regarded as a matter of great importance, but a difficult mechanical problem is involved, namely, to devise a form of parachute harness enabling the wearer to divest himself of encumbrances in a confined space in the least possible time if his machine falls into the water. Exhaustive trials and experiments extending over more than four years have been carried out with forms of quick re ease to enable the wearer to get rid of his parachute equipment. I am hopeful that the latest design of quick release will be adequate for sea-going aircraft other than those flying on and off ships' decks, and that one of the types of equipment recently under trial in the Fleet, although not fulfilling all the desired conditions, will be found sufficiently satisfactory for these latter aircraft. If this is confirmed, provision will be made as early as possible.

AIRSHIP R. 101.

Major CARVER: 20.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air when R. 101 is to make her first commercial flight; and what will be its nature?

Mr. MONTAGUE: I am not in a position to add anything to the replies given to my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton (Mr. Malone) and for South-East Southwark (Mr. Naylor) on 6th and 29th November last, respectively.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (TRADE UNION RECOGNITION).

Mr. MORLEY: 21.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will take steps to see that aircraft firms carrying out Government contracts give recognition to the trades unions of their employés?

Mr. MONTAGUE: I am not altogether clear in regard to the scope of my hon. Friend's inquiry. As he is aware, all Government contracts embody the House of Commons Resolution requiring a contractor to pay rates of wages and observe hours of labour not less favourable than those commonly recognised by employers and trade societies in the district. The insertion of a condition of wider import than this would have to be considered from a more general point of view than that of aircraft contracts, and as a question of Governmental contract policy as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

TRAFFIC NOISE (PROSECUTIONS).

Mr. FREEMAN: 22.
asked the Minister of Transport how many prosecutions, if any, have taken place since the issue of the order relating to the noise of road vehicles on 1st August, 1929; whether there has been any diminution in the amount of noise as a result of such order; and whether he intends to introduce legislation dealing with noises on railways, tubes, and other traffic?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): With reference to the first part of the question I am informed that the numbers of prosecutions which have been instituted from the 1st August to the 31st December, 1929, are:—

(a) Under the Motor Cars (Excessive Noise) Regulations, 1929
1,282


(b) For ineffective silencers, under the Motor Cars (Use and Construction) Orders
6,116


(c) For failing to stop action of machinery, under the Motor Cars (Use and Construction) Orders
8


Total
7,406

With reference to the second part of the question, there is reason to believe that the issue of the Motor Cars (Excessive Noise) Regulations, 1929, has had a beneficial effect in reducing the amount of noise caused by motor vehicles. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

Mr. HARRIS: Has the hon. Gentleman's Department discovered any machine yet for measuring noise?

ROADS ADMINISTRATION (DELEGATED POWERS).

Mr. HURD: 23.
asked the Minister of Transport to how many rural district councils are powers of road delegation being granted and refused, respectively, under the Local Government Act, 1929, and the reasons for any such refusals?

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: The number of rural district councils who applied to county councils under Section 35 of the Local Government Act, 1929, for delegation of the county council's functions in respect of unclassified roads, was 518, out of a total for England and Wales of 643. Of these applications, 174 were granted by the county councils, and 344 refused. Of the rural district councils whose applications were refused, 229 appealed to me. I have allowed 79 of these appeals and disallowed 100, and 26 are outstanding for various reasons. Twenty-four appeals were withdrawn or not proceeded with. The grounds on which delegation in respect of unclassified roads may be refused are set out in the Act, and are that the county council are satisfied that, having regard to the best means of promoting economy and efficiency in highway administration throughout the county and to the particular circumstances of the district in respect of which the application is made, the application ought not to be granted.

Mr. HURD: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether there is any general standard to be applied in the case of these refusals, with regard, especially, to the efficiency of a rural district council in its road work?

Mr. MORRISON: I conceive that the Statute requires that each county and each rural district shall be taken on its merits, and that I have done, in accordance with the directions of the Statute.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA (TRADE COMMISSIONERS).

Major POLE: 25.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether any action is to be taken by the Government of India on the recommendation of the Indian Trade Mission that Indian Trade Commissioners should be appointed at Alexandria, Mombasa, and Durban; and if he will inform the House as to what action has been taken in regard to the other recommendations of the Indian Trade Mission?

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): I understand that a decision regarding the creation of the three appointments is likely to be reached before long. The other recommendations of the Trade Mission were primarily for consideration by the milling industry and are receiving the attention of the Bombay Mill Owners Association.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE (PROMOTIONS).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 27.
asked the Postmaster-General if he will state the reasons for the promotion of two conscientious objectors in the Post Office; and the number of ex-service men they respectively passed over?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Lees-Smith): I presume the hon. Member refers to two promotions made in the London Postal Service in September last. The officers concerned were promoted because they were fully qualified and the best qualified of the eligible officers for the higher posts. There were no ex-service men senior to them who were not either on trial for other vacancies, or unfit or ineligible to fill the vacancies in question.

Mr. BENSON: May we have an assurance from the Government that the efficiency of Government services will not be interfered with to satisfy the prejudices of hon. Members opposite?

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

WORK SCHEMES (GRANTS).

Sir A. SINCLAIR: 30.
asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will state the total estimated cost of the schemes of work approved by the Unemployment Grants Committee to the latest convenient date?

The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Sir Oswald Mosley): I have been asked to reply. I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to a number of similar questions yesterday.

Mr. ALBERY: Is the hon. Baronet aware that his right hon. Friend made no reply?

Sir O. MOSLEY: My right hon. Friend said that a White Paper would shortly be issued conveying the whole of this information.

Mr. ALBERY: Is the hon. Baronet aware that his right hon. Friend made that statement at the beginning of last Session and the White Paper produced was only at the end of the Session? He stated that it was in the House, but it was not in the House at the beginning of Questions.

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.

Mr. O. LEWIS: 35.
asked the Minister of Labour whether it is proposed to introduce any legislation this Session to extend unemployment insurance to agricultural workers?

Mr. GOULD: 37.
asked the Minister of Labour what steps she has taken to prepare an unemployment scheme for agricultural workers; and when she proposes to lay such a Measure before this House?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Lawson): I would refer the hon. Members to the reply given to the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. W. B. Taylor) yesterday, of which I am sending them copies.

Mr. LAMBERT: Is the Department taking any steps to ascertain what the exact problem is and what amount of unemployment exists in agricultural districts?

Mr. LAWSON: All relevant facts of that description are being taken into consideration.

Mr. LAMBERT: Has the Department any figures on the question at all?

BENEFIT CLAIMS, BATH.

Mr. GOULD: 36.
asked the Minister of Labour if she will give the total number of claims for unemployment benefit in the Bath Employment Exchange area for the three months ended December, 1929, together with the number of claims refused, and the corresponding figures for 1928?

Mr. LAWSON: During the three months ended 9th December, 1929, 3,507 fresh and renewal claims to unemployment benefit were made at the Bath Employment Exchange. During this period 155 claims were disallowed by insurance officers and 15 claims were recommended for disallowance by courts of referees on review after payment of 78 days' benefit The corresponding figures for the three months ended 10th December, 1928, are 3,395 fresh and renewal claims made, 269 disallowances by insurance officers and 36 by courts of referees.

Oral Answers to Questions — REFUSE DESTRUCTION.

Mr. MILLS: 31.
asked the Minister of Health if he will examine the present methods of refuse destruction operating among certain London local authorities and urge them to take advantage of the present opportunity of constructing scientific refuse destructors at a minimum of local expenditure?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): It is not practicable to take action in this matter pending the report of the Committee which is now considering the general question of the public cleansing service in London.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Are some of the present Government's pledges going to be put into scientific refuse destructors?

Oral Answers to Questions — TAXATION (INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON).

Mr. ALBERY: 33.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that taxation has been reduced in the United States of America, Germany and Canada with a view to improving trade conditions; and whether he can give the present taxation per head of the population in those countries and in the United Kingdom?

The CHANCELLOR of the EX-CHEQUER (Mr. Philip Snowden): I have no official information on the first part of the question. I will circulate the figures asked for in the second part of the question in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. ALBERY: Have any representations been made by the Lord Privy Seal on the matter with a view to helping unemployment?

Mr. WISE: Did the reduction of Super-tax by the last Government have an appreciable effect?

Following are the figures:

The latest available figures of taxation per head of population are:

United States (1929 estimated)—27.6 dollars.

Germany (1929 estimated)—152.6 reichmarks.

Canada (1928 actual)—37.76 dollars.

United Kingdom (1929 estimated)—

£15 1s. 5d.

As, however, no particulars are avail-: able of the taxation levied by the States or provinces in the three countries first named, the figures are not comparable one with another.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE DISPUTES (VICTIMISATION).

Mr. ALBERY: 34.
asked the Minister of Labour if she will consider introducing legislation to prevent victimisation on the termination of trade disputes?

Mr. LAWSON: I think that, in general, both employers and workers recognise the desirability of restoring normal relations after a dispute and, therefore, of avoiding anything in the nature of victimisation. In my opinion, it is much more satisfactory to rely on the good sense and good will of the parties concerned than to attempt regulation by Statute.

Oral Answers to Questions — ECONOMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL.

Mr. MANDER: 38.
asked the Prime Minister what progress has been made with reference to the appointment of an economic general staff?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): His Majesty's Government have decided to set up at once an Economic Advisory Council under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. A White Paper setting out the scope and functions of this body, which will absorb the existing Committee of Civil Research, will shortly be presented. I hope to secure for the Council the whole-time services of at least two experienced economists.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is it true that the Prime Minister is going to co-opt the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) on to this Council?.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Will these two advisers rank as civil servants, or will they give voluntary service?

The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be good enough to wait for the White Paper, and then any further information which he would like to have I shall be very glad to supply.

Major NATHAN: Will it not be better, instead of a White Paper, to present these particulars in a Yellow Book?

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES (SECRETARY OF STATE).

Mr. FREEMAN: 40.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the appointment of a Secretary of State for Wales?

The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot see my way to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS (OPTIONAL CLAUSE).

Mr. MANDER: 39.
asked the Prime Minister when it is proposed to take the Debate on the Optional Clause?

The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend proposes to put down a Motion on
this subject forthwith, and I hope in the statement of Business which I shall in the ordinary course give to-morrow to be able to indicate the date on which the Motion will be debated.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

NATIVE LANDS TRUST BILL.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 11.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Secretary of State for the Colonies has approved any further amendments to the Kenya Native Lands Trust Bill; and whether monetary compensation is to be substituted for alternative land in the case of land in the reserves acquired compulsorily by Government for public purposes?

Dr. SHIELS: No Amendments to the Native Lands Trust Bill have been approved by my Noble Friend additional to those referred to in the reply returned to the right hon. Gentleman on the 6th of November. It is not intended to substitute monetary compensation as an alternative to adding to a reserve an area equal in extent to any land taken for public purposes, but the Bill provides that compensation in money shall be payable in respect of any difference in value between any area excluded and the area added.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Are we to understand from that, that, if land in the reserves is required for road or railway, equivalent acreage elsewhere has to be allocated?

Dr. SHIELS: No, except in the case of roads and railways which were definitely stated in the reply given to the right hon. Gentleman on the 6th November.

CIVIL AND MILITARY EXPENDITURE.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 13.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the finance committee of the Kenya legislative council proposes to reduce the estimates for the departments of public health, road construction, and education by £9,000, in order to render this sum available for further military expenditure; and what instructions have been sent to the Governor of Kenya by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in this matter?

Dr. SHIELS: My Noble Friend has seen a report in the Press to the effect stated in the question; but he has not yet received from the Governor of Kenya the despatch dealing with the Colony's estimates for 1930, which no doubt is on its way. Pending the receipt of that despatch the matter cannot usefully be considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG (MUI-TSAI SYSTEM).

Miss PICTON-TURBERVILL: 12.
(for Colonel WEDGWOOD) asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any and, if so, what steps are being taken to protect the registered mui-tsai in Hong Kong from cruelty?

Dr. SHIELS: The girls are free to leave their employers, and in any case the law now provides for their conditions of employment, their inspection, and the punishment of employers guilty of cruelty. It also gives power to remove from the employer any mui-tsai if it is decided to be in the girl's interest.

Miss RICTON-TURBERVILL: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether there has been any information since Lord Passfield's letter of 22nd August and the White Paper of November, and also whether the registration is duly being enforced in view of the fact that there are 10,000 of these mui-tsai, half of whom are under the age of 14?

Dr. SHIELS: Yes, the regulations of which the House has been informed are steadily being put into force, and I think that it is true to say that the worst abuses which have been complained of in regard to this matter have already disappeared, and we hope that in a very short time the state of things in Hong Kong in this connection will be entirely satisfactory.

Oral Answers to Questions — GIBRALTAR ("HOJAS LIBRE" NEWSPAPER).

Mr. KELLY: 14.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the suppression of the newspaper "Hojas Libre" in Gibraltar continues and when this ban is to be removed?

Dr. SHIELS: According to the latest information received from the Governor,
no further copies of this publication have been introduced into Gibraltar since the middle of last May. The question whether any action should be taken if copies are introduced in the future must depend upon the nature of their contents.

Mr. KELLY: Does this mean that the ban has now been removed?

Dr. SHIELS: It means that the copies of the paper coming into Gibraltar in future will be examined as heretofore, and action will be taken according to the nature of the contents.

Mr. MACOUISTEN: Will not the position in Gibraltar then be just the same as the position in this country during the General Strike?

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTHERN RHODESIA (LAND APPORTIONMENT ACT).

Major POLE: 18.
(for Colonel WEDGWOOD) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether the recent legislation in Southern Rhodesia which prohibited African Natives from buying or renting land outside the reserves has received the royal approval or whether he has recommended disallowance in view of the terms of the constitution?

Mr. LUNN: I presume my right hon. and gallant Friend refers to the Southern Rhodesia Land Apportionment Act, but I would observe that the object of this legislation is to set aside separate areas outside the native reserves as areas in which natives can alone hold and occupy land and other areas in which persons other than natives can alone hold and occupy land. It has been found that, in view of the terms of the Southern Rhodesia Constitution Letters Patent, there are legal difficulties in bringing this Act into effect, but the Secretary of State is in communication with the Government of Southern Rhodesia as to the steps which might be taken to enable legislation in the terms proposed to become operative.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCANTILE MARINE (LIGHTS SERVICE).

Mr. KELLY: 28.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has sanctioned
an increase in the payments to the officers and men employed in the lights service of Trinity House?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): The basic pay of the officers and men employed in the general grades of the lights service of Trinity House was settled by awards made by the Industrial Court in 1927, and no increases have been granted since those awards were promulgated.

Mr. KELLY: In view of the splendid services rendered by these men during recent months and the hazardous tasks which they have undertaken, will the Board of Trade see that they are adequately paid for the work?

Mr. SMITH: If there are any special cases that need attention, I am sure that it will be given to them.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIANS, DEPORTATION.

Sir K. WOOD: 32.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, consequent upon the exchange of Ambassadors with Soviet Russia he is now taking steps to secure the deportation of a number of aliens of Russian origin now in this country, many of whom have been recommended for deportation but who have remained here owing to the refusal of the Soviet Government to admit them to Russia?

The SECRETARY OF STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Clynes): Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS.

BANK AMALGAMATIONS.

Sir JOHN FERGUSON: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the present position and, powers of the Committee dealing with bank amalgamations, and move a Resolution.

INCIDENCE OF TAXATION.

Mr. MOND: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention
to the incidence of taxation on the development of industry, and move a Resolution.

SAFEGUARDING AND MCKENNA DUTIES.

Captain EDEN: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the attitude of the present Government on the Safeguarding and the McKenna Duties, and move a Resolution.

AGRICULTURE.

Major WOOD: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the question of agriculture, and move a Resolution.

WILD BIRDS PROTECTION (SCOTLAND).

Mr. MATHERS: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal certain enactments providing for the protection of wild birds in Scotland; and to substitute other provisions therefor.
The Bill which I am asking the leave of the House to bring in is one which applies to Scotland and the territorial waters around Scotland, and is for the purpose of repealing certain enactments for the protection of wild birds and for substituting other provisions. Scotland is richly endowed with bird life, and the measures taken up to the present to protect bird life have been embodied in seven Acts of Parliament extending from the year 1880 to the year 1904. These Acts have concerned themselves principally with protecting certain rare birds, and it may be said that the method we have adopted has had the effect of setting up an ornithological aristocracy. I want to go about the matter in a different way. This Bill seeks to establish a general protection for wild birds, their nests and eggs. This is not an attempt to solve the conundrum as to which came first, the bird or the egg, by bringing in as a third solution the suggestion that the nest came first.
The first exception to which I would draw attention is one that may he mentioned in connection with unemployment. I want to assure those unemployed, those not genuinely seeking work, who travel to Scotland in sleeping car express trains just before the 12th of August, that their
employment is not to be interfered with. That is another way of saying that there is no intention and no provision in this Bill to interfere with the birds that come within the provisions of the Game Laws. Therefore, the first exception that is made from the general protection provided by this Bill relates to game birds. There are certain quasi-game birds that are usually included in any shooting rights let to a tenant of ground, such as geese, ducks, etc. They also will be exempted from the general protection given by this Bill, and a Schedule provides for their exemption.
There are other exceptions from the general protection that is given. On application to the Secretary of State for Scotland by a county or burgh council, wild birds which are injurious to community interests will be exempted from the protection given by the Bill, so long as an order granted by the Secretary of State for Scotland is in force. With regard to birds that may be a nuisance to farmers, a nuisance to the fishing industry, or a menace to their own feathered friends, provision is made, for human community interests and for bird community interests, whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland, on application from a local authority, will have power to grant release from the protection given by the Bill. Therefore, in our democracy of bird life we take away protection only from those birds which have become criminals
It is provided that the Secretary of State for Scotland shall have power to extend protection to other birds. That gives him power to establish bird sanctuaries. I am sure the House will wish some power like that to be conferred when a matter of this kind is being dealt with. Certificates may be granted, on application to the Secretary of State for Scotland, providing for the supply of birds to zoological gardens and for birds to be used in public scientific investigations. These certificates will be strictly limited in their scope, and those taking or killing the birds or taking their eggs and nests will be required to give particulars showing how they have used the certificate granted, and what number of birds, eggs and nests have been taken. Provisions are made for prosecutions and penalties, and for the defraying of the small costs involved in this Bill. There
is also provision for the special position of the Island of St. Kilda, which had an Act passed in 1904 dealing with its particular situation.
Criticism may be directed at the question of penalties, and the proposal to make it an offence to take the eggs of any of the common birds. The boyish trait of taking eggs has not entirely died out, but the influence of youth organisations, church organisations and educational authorities has had very considerable effect in showing that the taking of birds' eggs is not a way in which the acquisitive spirit of boys should be used. Great progress has been made since the youth of many hon. Members in the direction of giving greater protection to common birds. If hon. Members argue that the provisions in this Bill are ahead of established public opinion, I should be very glad to find that that is so. It would be a refreshing novelty to see this House in legislation giving a lead to public opinion, instead of simply endorsing public opinion which has already established itself outside.
All who realise the value of the protection of birds, not only rare birds but the common birds of our everyday life, will wish to see this Bill brought in, so that they may have an opportunity of studying its provisions. Within this week we shall be celebrating the memory of Robert Burns, reminding ourselves of many of the things to which he gave expression, and reminding ourselves of the way in which he deplored the breaking of nature's social union. Here is an opportunity to heal some of the breaches of nature's social union, and I am glad that in this Burns celebration week I am asking the House to grant me permission to bring in a Bill for the protection of wild birds in Scotland. I ask for that permission with confidence.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mathers, Mr. Buchan, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Macpherson, Lieut.-Colonel Moore, and Mr. Ramsay.

WILD BIRDS PROTECTION (SCOTLAND) BILL,

"to repeal certain enactments providing for the protection of wild birds in Scotland; and to substitute other provisions therefor," presented accordingly, and read
the First time; to be read a Second time upon Wednesday, 5th February, and to be printed. [Bill 109.]

CHAIRMEN'S PANEL.

Mr. Frederick Hall reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Mr. James Brown to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (in respect of the Education (Scotland) Bill); and Mr. Cecil Wilson to act as Chairman of Standing Committee B (in respect of the Industrial and Provident Societies (Amendment) Bill).

Report to lie upon the Table.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. McELWEE: I beg to move,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the possibility of this House meeting earlier in the day and rising at a more reasonable hour in the evening, and to recommend, if it thinks fit, the necessary alterations in the Standing Orders.
In moving this Motion, I am deeply conscious of the traditions of this House, but the conditions under which Parliament meets to-day are not comparable with the conditions when the Standing Orders were framed, and I submit that they do not meet the requirements of the present time. It may be true that the Standing Orders suited the requirements of the last century, but I submit that they do not suit the requirements of the twentieth century.

Mr. HARRIS: On a point of Order. This is a very important Motion, and there is no Minister on the Front Bench to reply for the Government.

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Viant): The Minister in charge will be here in a few moments.

Mr. McELWEE: I was pointing out that, while the Standing Orders of the House may have been suitable to the requirements of the nineteenth century, they are not suited to present day requirements. When the Standing Orders were framed, those who represented the people of this country were mainly members of the richer classes and members of the legal profession who lived or the sins of the people in the forenoon—[Interruption]—and then came down to the House of Commons to muddle up the Statutes and create more opportunities for the people to commit more sins.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: May I ask, on a point of Order, if it is possible to arrange that the Attorney-General should be present?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a question for me.

Mr. McELWEE: We on these benches have been elected by the people in order to devote our whole time to the service of the people of this country, and there is great dissatisfaction not only among the electors but among hon. Members of this House. They desire a change, they desire to bring the House into line with
modern requirements and modern needs. Any hon. Member who is over the age of 35 must realise that he cannot give the same attention to business of this description, or of any description, after eight o'clock at night. [Interruption.] He has not the physical energy. At least £1,000 per skull has been spent on the education of hon. Members opposite. [Interruption.] If we were to make a calculation as to the amount spent on educating hon. Members on these benches, it would probably be £100 per head. Therefore, we ought to have greater results for the money spent on the education of hon. Members opposite, and, if they had shown that intelligence which money spent on education ought to provide, they would give more consideration to one who is making his maiden speech.
Medical opinion tells us to-day that we must have regularity not only in meals but in hours if we are to have efficiency in administration, or in any sphere of life at all. I heard a story quite recently about an hon. Member of the Opposition consulting a doctor. He felt out of sorts—I do not know whether it was mental trouble or not—and, on investigation, the doctor told him that he was sitting up too late at night. He pointed out that the reason he was sitting up late at night was that he had to attend to his business in the House of Commons. We want a change; we want to rationalise the business of the House of Commons and bring it into line with the needs of the present day.
In the past, political representation has been a secondary consideration to business in the City, after which hon. Members came to what is said to be the best club in England in order to spend their afternoons. We want to make the House of Commons a serious business, and the people of the country demand that it should be used for the purpose for which it is intended. We are now paid £400 per year. [An HON. MEMBER: "More than you are worth!"] You cannot find out whether we are worth that until you have given us a longer time in office. Since 1832 you will find that one party in the State has had a vast monopoly of the representation in the country—I refer to the Liberal party—but, in spite of that monopoly, they have little to show to-day.
I am asking that a Select Committee should be appointed to examine the desirability of the House meeting at a more reasonable hour, and I appeal to hon. Members to consider the matter seriously. We desire to get home at a reasonable hour at night; we desire to live a rational life. Not only have we to consider Members of the House but also the policemen who have to stand in the corridors under the most miserable conditions until one and two o'clock in the mornings. [Interruption.] I do not know why hon. Members opposite should sneer. There is no reason why policemen should be subjected to these conditions, nor is there any reason why the staff should be subjected to these conditions. Then those who are responsible for reporting our proceedings are desirous of living a normal life like everybody else, and I am satisfied that those who represent the Press would accept a change.
The result would be that the House of Commons would really be used in the best interests of the people instead of as a club where the idle rich can enjoy themselves. [Interruption.] Yes, I have seen men who drive the luxurious cars of hon. Members opposite standing at two o'clock in the morning, and doing it possibly for a wage of £2 per week. We want to get the House of Commons to meet earlier in the day, and I am satisfied that if it could be arranged it would meet with the general approval of the people of the country and the wishes of hon. Members themselves.

Mr. HARDIE: I beg to second the Motion.
I do not think that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have interrupted have understood that my hon. Friend who moved this Motion was making a maiden speech. It is the custom of the House that one who is so doing should have a certain licence. We understand that the breaking of the ice in this House calls for sympathy, and that under the prevailing conditions nerves or other things may make it difficult to break that ice. I am glad that the Motion has been moved. I have been a Member of the House for over seven years and have worked hard in trying to get the House rationalised. When the House is engaged in demanding that every other place of business shall be rationalised, surely it is not too much to ask that the House
should rationalise itself. What we are suffering from to-day in this House is the fact that its tradition is that of a club, and that the fungus of that tradition has been able to grip every party that has come into office—that the tentacles of the fungus growth have engulfed every party.
What are the demands? I have heard Members of Parliament on public platforms talk about all-night sittings as if they had accomplished something great in the interests of the nation, instead of having shown their incapacity to run the business of the House in a proper way. Such gentlemen talk as if they ought to get a medal or something of the kind for sitting up all night. It merely shows incapacity. The ordinary Member of Parliament who attends here as regularly as I do has no social life in the ordinary meaning of the word. There is no chance of having an evening visit when week-ends are spent in propaganda or in going to church. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite need not smile at that. Their laughter is the echo of the heretic, and there has always been the same note in all assemblies and all ages. Social life is an important thing, especially to those who seek to be the makers of the laws of the nation. London itself is supposed to be a great centre for showing the latest in theatres, but how often can one get to a theatre if one is a Member of Parliament [Laughter.] I know that that "Haw, haw" of laughter comes from those who leave the House when they should be here, but they do not say that when they are on the platform in their constituencies.
I come next to the question of health, which is a serious thing for those who take their work earnestly. There has not been sufficient evidence of interest even in personal health on the part of hon. Members to get them to arrange that we should meet in a properly ventilated chamber. I do not know of any big business, here or in America, in which there are executive offices or board rooms with the conditions that obtain in this House so far as health is concerned. The whole arrangement of this House and its business to-day tends to demoralise Members. The idea that the hours are unalterably fixed seems to be established in the minds of the majority. Consider for a moment what is meant by the average energy that can be produced by an individual
who is in a fair state of health, and then consider the arrangements in this House, where Members may have to be at a Committee at 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning, are engaged right up to 2.45, and then may be sitting till 2 or 3 o'clock the next morning. Every medical authority will say that with such hours of work it is idle to expect more than about 25 per cent. of the possible capacity of a man or woman. Members are asked to do something that they feel too tired to overtake.
This is a very serious question. We have in the Library of the House Reports which show the results of careful examination regarding the expenditure and expression of energy in certain physical operations. It is time that we appreciated what is the result of the expenditure of energy on the mental side. In the old days Parliament was not a full-time job. Members conducted business in the City in the morning, and this House was considered to be an evening club. Back benchers came down to listen in what was called "the best debating society in the world." But that has all changed. Social legislation that has been passed has made the job of the Member of Parliament a full-time job, if he is to do his work thoroughly. The calls that are made on the average Member to-day by ex-service men, by unemployment claims and all the other things that social legislation brings in its train, have to be set against the experience of the past when this House was looked upon as a club.
Of course, we shall be told that there are arguments against the proposed change. We shall be told that it is impossible to carry out our suggestion, because Ministers in charge cannot attend to their duties in Whitehall and be here at the same time. We are not asking for that. We are merely demanding that the House should adopt business hours so that there will be sufficient business capacity to deal with the work that has to be done. It does not follow that because a Minister is in charge of a Department every other Member of the House has to be subject to the arrival here of that Minister. In the world of business outside what do we find? There is the man who is nominally in charge, over all, but in his absence there are others just as capable as he is to carry
on the work. I suggest that when it comes to a question of the final say in any discussion, in this House or in Committee, the head of the Department could be called in. I see nothing that stands in the way of a re-arrangement upon a business basis that would make this House look more like a business concern than something which swings between entertainment and all-night sittings.
4.0 p.m.
Can there be any greater charge of incapacity against a body of men than the charge that we are so incapable of arranging our time that we have long recesses of months and then come back to all-night sittings in order to overtake the work that we have allowed to accumulate? That, itself, is evidence that there has been no concentration of the big business brains in this House towards getting down to a real business working level. In regard to the arrangements between Committees and the House of Commons, I have been told by those who have thought this thing out that you cannot do this because you have got your Committees and House working together; but if you want to get down to business arrangements you can have alternate days. Why not have one day for the sittings of Committees upstairs, if they are upstairs, and the next day for the House itself to sit? I can see nothing in the way of such an arrangement. Who can suggest that there is anything wrong in having alternate days, or arranging the days in relation to the work? It might be that you would require more days this month for Committee work, or fewer days as the case may be. It would be a simple thing to arrange. I see no difficulty whatever about getting this House on to a real business working basis.
Why should we not start in the morning at 9 or 10 o'clock and get home, like other people, to the fireside, in order to take part in the family life, which has its most important part in the evenings? It is then that the control, if any control is required, can be best expressed in relation to the responsibilities of a parent or parents. For the reasons that have been given by the Mover, and the pressing needs of this nation, the growing proof of the congestion that takes place from time to time in this House, I hope that the British Parliament, the British House of Commons, will
realise its great responsibilities, get down to a real business basis, and show the world that, while claiming to be the leading business brains in the world, it can also apply the same business brains to the greatest business of the world—the business of legislation.

Captain BOURNE: I hope the House will consider very seriously before adopting this Motion. I have listened very carefully to the speeches of the Mover and Seconder, and I am bound to say that, except for the desire of some greater social amenities, which was put especially by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie), I have not heard any argument of any kind in support of it, and I have heard a complete lack of understanding as to how the House conducts its business or how the business of the country is run. We must remember that for the majority of Members of this House, the hours are very largely governed by the necessities and business of the country which we are here to carry on. We are not here for our own convenience and our own pleasure. I believe that this is the hon. Mover's first Parliament, and he has had so far the good fortune to sit in that part of the Session in which Private Bills have hardly yet begun to come before us. Committees upstairs have functioned in this Session, but I can promise the hon. Member that, if he desires work in the time between now and August, he will have as much work as he can manage, and, indeed, far more between the hours of 11 a.m. and 11 p.m., and that he will wish there were 24 hours rather than 12 in the working day. I can speak with some feeling on this subject, because it is known in the House that I am one of the hon. Members who generally are here in the hours suggested by the hon. Mover. I attend most days, and I wish there were more time, and not less, for me to get through my work here.
One of the things that, apparently, did not occur to the hon. Member is that a large number of notices of Amendments relating to business coming on the next day is often handed in at the Table the night before. That business cannot be reached before 9 o'clock the next morning. It is possible that the hon. Member for Springburn does not wish to study the technicalities of Amendments,
but those who are concerned, Ministers, the Chair, and hon. Members who wish to deal with these matters in the House, require several hours in the morning to go through the work to be dealt with in the House.

Mr. HARDIE: I put forward the alternate day.

Captain BOURNE: I understand the hon. Member preferred that the House should sit only two days of the week?

Mr. HARDIE: The hon. and gallant Member has not been listening. I said alternate days.

Captain BOURNE: Three days a week?

Mr. HARDIE: I pointed out that it might be that the House would sit more days as a House, or less days, as the ease might be.

Captain BOURNE: Then I understand that some weeks it would sit on three days and in others on two?

Mr. HARDIE: The hon. and gallant Member seems to be trying to misunderstand me. The days would be alternate, according to the needs of the House and the Committees, but we should still sit on five days of the week.

Captain BOURNE: I have done my very best to follow the speech of the hon. Member. The suggestion is not quite original, and if he will study the Standing Orders of the House he will discover that in 1918 a suggestion was made similar to the one he has just been making, that this House should adjourn after questions, I think on two days a week—I have not verified it by looking up the Standing Orders—in order that the work of the Standing Committees might be carried on. I believe I am correct in saying that that Standing Order was not put into operation, the reason being the pressure on the work of the House. The hon. Member would find that if so many days were spent in Committees, the House would have to be kept sitting continuously from January to December in order to deal with the necessary work that must go through the House.

Mr. HARDIE: I do not mind.

Captain BOURNE: I will leave it at that. But I would like to point out that this suggestion is by no means new. It was made by the right hon. Member for East Bradford (Mr. Jowett) before a Select Committee which considered this question in 1913. It was ably argued by him and unanimously rejected by the Select Committee. What are the grounds on which this suggestion, which has been raised many times, has been turned down? First and foremost, I think the one which was raised by the hon. Member as a possible objection, namely, the work of the Departments. The hon. Member for Hulme (Mr. McElwee) seems to imagine that Ministers not engaged on the actual business could be released, say, at three or four o'clock in the afternoon. I am not going to deny that that could be done, but how can a Minister in charge of an important Bill see what new work he has got to tackle before eleven o'clock in the morning when the earliest time at which he can get his Amendments is nine o'clock, and the study of these Amendments means in nearly every case a very considerable amount of research? I do not believe that the hon. Member realises the amount of research work that has to be done both by Members in charge of Bills, by Members who are taking a leading part in the opposition to a Bill, and by you, Sir, or the Chairman who happens to be presiding over the deliberations of this House. Before the Committee takes any important Amendment, hours and hours of research work have to be put in in the morning, and all the people who are engaged in this work have other duties to perform which they cannot shirk, have other responsibilities which this House has placed upon them, and, in the interest of efficient legislation, it is extraordinarily important that we should get some breathing time between finishing our deliberations one night and recommencing the next afternoon.
Furthermore, if this House is to meet at 11 o'clock in the morning, the attendance of hon. Members on Private Bill Committees will be made a matter of extreme difficulty. After all, it is our duty to attend in this Chamber, which has the prior call upon us over the other duties which the House puts upon us. Over and above that, there are many other duties. I and perhaps other Members sit on bodies, engaged in public work
which are not, strictly speaking, part of this House. It is very desirable that Members of this House should take part on departmental Committees, in conferences on kindred problems, and should attend meetings of county councils and local government associations: but, if you are to say that we are to be here from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., what chance have we to do that public work which many of us do willingly and cheerfully at present in the mornings? You will be lessening the efficiency and utility of Members of Parliament for a gain which in itself is negligible. Thirdly, at present, as the House knows, we end controversial business in this House at 11 p.m. and non-controversial business at 11.30, but we have always had sad experience of the Government frequently coming down and asking leave to extend the Eleven o'Clock Rule. The main difficulty now in the Government suspending that Rule is the general disinclination of hon. Members in all parts of the House to sit after midnight. If the contested business finished at seven o'clock, that objection would no longer apply, and I believe that we should have Governments coming down day after day asking for a suspension of the Seven o'clock Rule. The only result would be that, instead of getting home early, we should sit from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day of the week. No Government is immune from the temptation of taking more time, and we do not want to give Governments too large facilities. We are opposed to anything which gives them the chance of adding another four hours to our working day.
The last objection is the most serious of all. There are many people who have played distinguished parts in this House, distinguished parts in the administration of their country, who would never have been able to enter Parliament at all if these proposed hours had been in force. There is not a Member on either side of the House who would not think that this Assembly would have been the poorer if the late Lord Oxford and Asquith had not been a Member of it. He was a man who, in his early days, had perforce to earn his daily bread, and he could not have entered the House when he did, and given honourable service, ultimately rising to the very high position he did, if he had been compelled
to attend from eleven in the morning to seven in the evening, during hours in which he was engaged in earning his daily bread. I disagree with the Mover and Seconder of this Motion that we want in this House only persons who are professional politicians, who are willing to sit here all day and do nothing else. I believe that the presence in this House of hon. Members who are distinguished in the law, in banking, and in business brings a freshness of outlook into our deliberations and an experience to our judgments which we could ill spare. I believe that the presence of such men is one of the reasons why this House is held in such high esteem in the country—in much greater esteem than the House of Representatives in the United States is held in that country, because that is largely a House of professional politicians. I, for one, feel that the prestige of this House will suffer when it can consist only of those who either by the extent of their wealth or because of other circumstances are able to give their entire time to the service of this House. I believe our deliberations will be the poorer and our judgment less respected, and that, in the interests of the country as well as of the House, no steps should be taken which would ensure that result. For those reasons, I oppose the Motion.

Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: I should like to begin by congratulating very warmly the hon. Member who introduced this Motion upon the way in which he did it, and to assure him that, if he was at any time interrupted, that was only because the vigour and pugnacity of his speech concealed from those who sit on these benches the fact that it was the hon. Member's first speech. We shall look forward keenly to hearing him again in the future. I am very glad indeed that I am speaking on this matter on the same side as and following the very powerful speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne), because his knowledge of the Rules and Procedure of this House gives great weight to everything that he says on this subject. I am sure hon. Members opposite will realise that if they suggest that the present hours prevent hon. Members from giving their full time and their full energy to the service of the House, they have, in the hon. and gallant Member
for Oxford, an instance of how much energy and absolute devotion to the business of this House can be combined with the present hours, and with a great many occupations outside.
I want to deal, first, with the practical suggestions made by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie). I do not think that they would meet the end which he has in view. His suggestion is that the House sittings and Committees should be on alternate days, but, however he plays about with the hours of the day and the days of the week and the weeks of the year, he cannot disguise from himself the fact that by that method he would be reducing the pace at which this House gets through its business. It would inevitably be so. An amount of time which might be given to the business of the House would have to be given to Committees, and the suggestion that we can get out of that difficulty by sitting continuously from the beginning of January to the end of December—a course which commended itself to the hon. Member for Springburn—is quite contrary to his own argument about health. If it is bad for our health to sit late at night, it must also be bad for our health to go on sitting continuously without any break or holiday.

Mr. HARDIE: You do not need to do so.

Mr. GRIFFITH: If we are to consider the question of the value of social amenities, then a great many more opportunities for social amenities can be obtained during the holidays when one is completely free, than in the broken hours of an evening. Therefore, I do not think that either on the grounds of health, or social amenities, or on practical grounds, the alternative suggested by the hon. Member meets the difficulties of the case. I hope the House will consider this proposal without those party considerations which rather impaired the opening speech in this Debate notwithstanding all the merits of that speech. We ought not to consider this important alteration in the Rules of the House as a matter to be introduced by one party in the State and to be opposed by the others. I should not be surprised to find that this is entirely a cross-bench question, and that different people in different parties hold different views upon it. But
the practical objections to the proposal appear to be very grave indeed. We have had experience in the present Parliament of Ministers being called for suddenly by the Opposition and that is not a peculiar freak on the part of this Opposition. I remember hon. Gentlemen opposite being highly indignant on one occasion when the First Lord of the Admiralty in the last Government was not in his place. When he did arrive they were not quite so pleased, but they were very anxious to obtain his presence in reference to a matter which arose rather unexpectedly.
That kind of thing happens constantly. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is liable to be called upon at any moment and the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General may be required to explain the legal provisions of a Bill at almost any time, and, if the House is going to sit in the morning, the other duties of these Law Officers outside the House will be incapable of combination with the duties that they owe to this House. We had an instance in the present Session when the Lord Advocate's presence was eagerly demanded. That was in the morning, and the hon. and learned Gentleman could not be found. But, seriously, situations of that kind are going to occur again and again. Many of us back benchers make considerable nuisances of ourselves to Ministers in the interests of our constituents by addressing searching queries to those Ministers, and I, myself, on many occasions, have worried both the hon. Lady who is the present Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and her predecessor. I have found that both of them, however busy they might be in the conduct of Bills in this House, were never too busy to give courteous consideration to everything I had to say, and to give it their own personal consideration. How is that to be done if, at the very time when they would naturally be going into these individual cases with the officials of their Departments, their presence is demanded here? On that ground, I suggest that the actual transaction of the business of the House by Ministers, and the satisfaction of Private Members who ask questions and raise matters on behalf of their constituents, would be gravely injured by an alteration of the kind proposed.
All these, however, are details of mechanism and these difficulties might be met in some degree, though not fully, by other expedients. But the last consideration put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford is the predominating one. Hon. Members opposite have put it frankly that the business of the House has so changed that membership of it has to be a full-time job. They say, quite frankly, that they want the business of the House regulated with the same hours and in the same way as other full-time jobs. That is a weighty consideration and deserves to be discussed, but what does it mean in the end? I am not using the words "professional politician" which I take from the last speaker with any meaning of scorn. We are all professional politicians in one sense. No one has levelled any accusation against those whose political job is their only job, and to whom it is their whole life, but does that necessarily mean that the House of Commons is going to be a better place if all its Members are in that position? That is a very different matter.
I have the greatest admiration for those who are devoting their whole time to politics and in many cases producing such excellent results, but, at the same time, I think it would be a sad day for the House of Commons if it should ever come to consist exclusively of people of one kind. I think the House of Commons is better now than it was in the days when it did consist very largely of people of one kind. The different types of Members who have come into the House recently represent a change which is all to the good. We do not want the House to be all of one kind of any single variety. If we are to have the kind of House which would be dictated, necessarily, by this alteration of hours, it will consist of two varieties—the whole-time politicians who are making a career of politics, and the leisured gentleman who has nothing else to do and can just as easily come to this House in the morning, or perhaps even more easily, than he can in the afternoon. The people who will be ruled out are those who are still in active and constant contact with practical life, and I suggest that to do so would be disastrous for this House.
It has been suggested that this is only a matter of lawyers, but there are also the gentlemen of the City, and hon.
Members opposite are no longer in a position to speak with scorn of the City. I suggest that we derive daily the very greatest value from having in our Debates here, not only those who have been engaged in the hurly-burly of life in the past, but those who are still from day to day in contact with practical business and practical work other than the work of this House. Such Members come here and give us the benefit of a practical experience which is going on contemporaneously with their Parliamentary service, and I think it will be a bad day for Parliament when that system ceases. Quite frankly—and I hope it is not too Conservative an attitude—I like the present constitution of this House, in this sense, that it is a delightful mixture; and I hope it will go on being that delightful mixture of types. I hope that Members who engage in a political career will realise that they have to make sacrifices of some of their social amenities, and, if necessary, some part of their health in following the career which they have taken up, rather than that the whole character of this great deliberative assembly should be changed in a well-meaning effort to get down to hours which are more convenient for our own personal tastes and habits. Therefore, I desire to Join my voice most heartily with that of the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford and to express the hope that the House will think very long before it makes this sweeping change.

Major GRAHAM POLE: I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) has just said, that this is in no sense a party matter, but is one which affects us all as Members of this House and as human beings. I feel, also, that it is not a matter on which the younger Members of this House will be listened to by the older Members with any great degree of attention. Of course, the younger Members have not had experience of the machine, but may I put, as against that consideration, the fact that the older Members have had so much experience of the machine that they have grown accustomed to it. They cannot see many things which are apparent to those newly coming into it do. It is just the same as going to a foreign country. When you go to any foreign country for the first time, many things
strike you which you do not notice on your subsequent visits, because you have grown to expect them and have become accustomed to them. One thing which is appalling to me in this place is the manner in which we rely on precedent, precedent, precedent all the time. We never think out anything new. No man on earth and no body of men would ever think of setting up a Parliament with our hours and in the way in which this Parliament is set up to-day. There is nothing to my mind more deadening than merely relying on precedents and never being able to get outside precedents. The difficulty is that we become so accustomed to the precedents that we cannot look beyond them at all.
We know that this is a very good club, and it has that advantage for all of us, and no one wants to disparage that side of it, but this place is not instituted and is not required to-day simply or chiefly as a club. This House, along with the other place, is trying to conduct the affairs, not merely of this country, but of a great Empire, and we cannot do it if we have in the House business men, lawyers, trade union officials, and others who require to devote the best part of the day, between 10 o'clock and 5 o'clock, to the conduct of their ordinary business affairs. I do not care whether a man is a trade union official or the director of a company, or a lawyer, if he is spending the best part of his energy during the morning and early afternoon in conducting his own business and only come to this House afterwards to give the fag-end of his time and energy to the business of the community, to the business of the country and the Empire, he is not doing his duty by the House of Commons, and certainly not by the constituency which has sent him here.
As one who has only had a short experience of this House, I should say that this is undoubtedly a full-time job for any man who cares to do it. The hon. and gallant Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) spoke of the pressure on the House at present from eleven in the morning till eleven at night, but if there is that pressure, and if, as he says, this is a full-time job, there is not time for men to do their ordinary business in the morning and the afternoon and then to come here afterwards. It is because of that that I feel that when people are going to stand for
Parliament they should make up their mind whether they are going to give their time to Parliament or to their business, whether in law, in the City, or in their trade unions. They have to make their choice what they are going to do. They have here a full-time job if they care to do it, and, after all, they are being paid for doing it.
As I have said already, we have so little imagination that we fear changes the whole time. No man in his senses would try to set up a Parliament constituted as this Parliament is constituted now. When, under the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), we were setting up a Parliament for India, we took this Parliament as a model for that Parliament, but we did not take the hours of sitting of this Parliament. We suggested for the Parliament in India that they should begin at nine or ten in the morning and go on till one o'clock, or whatever time the President felt that they ought to rise for lunch, that they should begin again at two in the afternoon and go on till five, and that if they required to sit later, they should rise for half or three-quarters of an hour for tea and go on again after that. But we do not rise for lunch, we do not rise for tea, we do not rise for dinner. We go on interminably, and nothing is more maddening than to come here at a quarter to three in the afternoon, go out for tea, come back at about five, find someone still speaking here, go out and have dinner, come back again, and still find this eternal babble, babble, babble going on, this eternal talk, talk, talk, most of which could be done without with very great advantage. You get people who are in favour of Bills standing up and wanting to say how much they are in favour of them, and you get people who are against them standing up one after another and giving the same points very often in opposition to the Bills.
We are not meant to listen in this House. There is no human being who can listen from a quarter to three in the afternoon till a quarter to three the next morning, or even till eleven at night. It is not intended that we should listen. In India we did intend them to be there and to listen, and they make a point of
attending. They attend very much better there than we attend in this House. I have attended in the Strangers' Gallery there, and one of the things that interest men, coming here from India and sitting in the Dominions Gallery, is to see how few Members here seem to think it necessary to attend the Debates. In India they have their hours for meals, and they think it necessary, while a debate is going on, to attend that debate, but no human being can do it in this Parliament under the hours which we have here, hours that have come about simply because no one thought them out, the same way as that in which the British Constitution was built up. Like Topsy, it just "growed." It was never thought out at all.
The electors of this country want to make this more a full-time job than it has been. I am not afraid of being called a professional politician. That does not worry me, but if anyone is going to stand for Parliament, he ought to make Parliament his first job and be ready to give his time to the job—the best part of his time, not the remainder of it. We ought to have such hours arranged here that we can attend the Debates and sit through them and still have some time for stoking the human machine, instead of going on listening to the speeches in this House, which, in some cases is very, hard work indeed. I believe that if we did not regard this as a party matter, but as a national matter, if we had the good of Parliament and of the country at heart, we would try to think out something more rational than we have now. It ought not to be beyond the wit of man to devise some scheme by which we could make the hours of this House hours during which one could reasonably give intelligent consideration to the matters before us. I defy any man to come hers at a quarter to three in the afternoon to sit till a quarter past five or later the next morning, and to take an intelligent interest in what is going on, or if he does that, he cannot give intelligent consideration to what will come up before him at a quarter to three the next afternoon.
We have to try to see how this Assembly can be made a deliberative and legislative Assembly, one of which we can be proud. We are proud of this Assembly, of its history, and of its place among the
nations of the world, but I believe that that pride should not stand in the way of our seeing what improvements can be made. Let us make them in an intelligent way. With very great vigour, I support the suggestion that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the question of the sittings of this House; and may I say how glad I am that the Postmaster-General will speak for the Government on this matter, because he and I sat for a few years, I think, on a Committee that considered this matter very thoroughly. We discussed the sittings of this House, and of other Parliaments in other parts of the world, not merely in the British Empire, but in Europe and elsewhere, and my hon. Friend had distinct ideas on the matter then about how they could be improved. I hope the Postmaster-General has still got those ideas. I know that with very great diligence we worked out a report, which in the ordinary course we sent up to the headquarters of our party, and that in the ordinary course, like every other Government or party report, it was pigeon-holed; and I do not suppose anyone knows now where it is. I hope something more will be done with this Motion, and I hope the Postmaster-General will look up that report, for which he was very much responsible himself.

Captain AUSTIN HUDSON: If all that we had to consider was what I might call the personal convenience of Members, in regard to their health and social relaxation, there would be very few people in this House who would not have a great deal of sympathy for the Motion which has been moved, but it is not merely a selfish question; it is a question of whether the business of this House would or would not be possible under a system of sitting during the day rather than during the afternoon. I do not believe there is a great deal to be made out of the question of the House of Commons being the best club. I have always had that told to me by people outside the House, but I do not believe that in this present Parliament or in the Parliaments since the War there have been many people who have joined the House of Commons merely as a club. I believe the great majority of Members here conscientiously endeavour to carry out their duties, both in representing
their constituencies and in giving what special qualifications they may have towards the deliberations in debate. There is one other thing that I would say before I come to the reasons why I think this Motion should not be carried, and that is that I think we are all agreed that the stupidest thing that we have in the present House of Commons is the all-night sitting. Every Member who has been through an all-night sitting is quite determined, after his first experience, that some way should be found to avoid them, because the type of debate that takes place during the early hours of the morning is certainly not such as to enhance the reputation of the House.
The first point that I wanted to make was the point which was put very forcibly both by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) and by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith), on the Liberal Benches, and that is the question of what is called the professional politician. It is an extraordinary term, but by it I mean the man who gives his time to nothing but politics. I should think it was a very great pity if we prevented a business man, or a man who had other interests besides the House of Commons, from coming into this House owing to an alteration in the hours of sitting. There are many men who may have come into the House of Commons originally who are in business, or perhaps in the law, or they may be trade union officials, and they are able to come here because of the hours of sitting of the House; and for that reason we are able to get into this House some younger men who otherwise would not be able to come. They spend some years in the House, perhaps not giving quite as full time as others do, but later on their business is not so pressing, they have experience in the House, and they become very useful Members indeed.
Besides that, you get men who have a specialised and up-to-date knowledge of particular subjects. We know that all kinds of debate come up on highly technical Bills, like the Electricity Bill and the present Coal Bill, and we have Members who are actively engaged in those industries, and whose advice and whose speeches are extremely helpful to the House. I am afraid that if we made the Sittings of the House start in the
morning, and made it impossible for a man ever to attend to a business, we should only have the whole-time politicians, whose sole business was politics, who are usually called professional politicians, and old men who had finished their business life and had come here afterwards. That, I think, would be a very great pity and would not add to the efficiency of the House or to the quality of the Debates. The last speaker said that you must make the House of Commons the first call on your time, and I entirely agree. If a Member is in business, he should consider himself primarily a House of Commons man, and if it was necessary for his presence in the House and in his own business at the same time, the House should have the balance, and he should attend here under those circumstances.
There is one other point, and that is that the Debates in this House are not the only part of the business of a Member of Parliament. Sometimes I have heard speeches, particularly in the last Parliament, from the benches opposite to the effect that we should not adjourn for a Christmas or an Easter Recess because of some particularly pressing problem, but it has been pointed out again and again on those occasions that probably that problem could just as well be settled without the Sittings of the House. In fact, the present Prime Minister has said very much the same thing himself. You must have reasonable time for debate, but a tremendous amount of a politician's time is taken up, as Members in all parts of the House well know, in jobs behind the scenes, which are just as important as the actual Debates in the House, and for which there would be no time if the Sittings were altered, as suggested by the Mover and Seconder of the Motion.
We have an enormous number of letters and interviews and deputations in connection with our constituencies, and I cannot see how we can possibly do them with a morning sitting. It might be said the House could sit at 11 o'clock, and that we could do our letters and our interviews during the Sittings of the House, but it is not satisfactory so to arrange things that Members find it extremely difficult to be present during the Debates. We all know how awkward it is when you are getting to the end of a Session and
you find that a Standing Committee is so pressed to finish by the end of that Session that it has to sit in the afternoon as well as in the morning. You find that you are wanted upstairs for a Committee and that you are also wanted in this Chamber, and, as you cannot be in two places at the same time, you probably try to divide your time evenly between the two, with the result that you do neither of those jobs well.
Committees are necessary. Very soon we shall have Standing Committees going in full blast. There are both Standing Committees and Private Bill Committees upstairs in the morning; they do a lot of important work which it will be impossible for them to do if Parliament meets at the same time. I am not going to stress the question of Ministers. I expect that the Postmaster General will have some word to say on that point, but anybody who has had any experience of the inside of one of the Departments knows that Ministers do not have an idle time in their Ministries. It is, therefore, necessary that they should have a certain amount of time to themselves in the morning to get through the ordinary Departmental business. The Mover and Seconder of the Motion are proposing to cut off the Parliamentary time between seven and eleven in the evening, and to substitute in its place the time between eleven and two or ten and two in the morning; in other words, they would cut off a part of the day which lengthens the working day, and gives recreation time in its place.
At the present moment, a Member who is working hard can start in the morning either with his own business or on Parliamentary business, and he may have a Committee upstairs, and then the House at 2.45 until 11. Under the proposed arrangement, he would start at nine and automatically the House would shut down at seven, so that he could have recreation. That is very nice for individual Members, but, when we come into this House, we realise that the hours are very hard and that it is practically impossible to accept social engagements. Realising that, we must accept it, and not endeavour to alter the hours in order that we can be Members of Parliament and get recreation at the same time. I do not see why there should not be some slight alteration to give us shorter hours. I do not see why
the House should not meet at two and end at ten, which is a reasonable time for anybody to finish.
There is always a tendency of Governments to try to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule, and the present Government are no better in that respect than the last Government. In fact, I think that they are rather worse. During the Session up to Christmas, the Eleven o'clock Rule was suspended nearly ever night. If hon. Members opposite and Members of the Liberal party will join with us and refuse, except in urgent circumstances, to have the Eleven o'clock Rule suspended, the Government would not put it down so often. It really only comes from trying to get through too much business. All Governments are guilty of it. The continual suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule is one thing which makes the hours of this House so irksome. For these reasons, I shall vote against this Motion. I believe that some slight alteration can be made, and that, if we put our foot down against the suspenson of the Eleven o'clock Rule, a good deal could be done. On the other hand, I am certain that if we made the sitting of the House in the morning and afternoon, instead of in the evening, we would deprive the House of a large number of useful Members, and make the business of governing the country impossible.

Mr. SEXTON: From the point of view of tradition, I find myself at variance with the Mover of the Motion. I am not a new Member, and therefore am entitled to speak from experience and, personally, I find no inconvenience in the statutory hours up to 11 p.m., and I should not like to see that tradition altered. I confess to being influenced somewhat by tradition. My hon. and gallant Friend for South Derbyshire (Major Pole) suggested that the business of the House might be temporarily suspended for meals, so as to avoid the monotony of dull speeches—and many of the speeches we are compelled to listen to are decidedly dull not only from the back benches but the Front Bench as well. To my mind, the proposal will intensify the penalty, because the monotony of the speeches would still go on.
I have a decided objection to imparting into this House the atmosphere of the working day, which reminds me of
The time when we had to knock off to boil our cans for breakfast and to be dismissed and called back with the buzzer; and without any reflection on that time, it is not an atmosphere I should like to see in this House. There are certain incidents inside the present Standing Orders which require careful consideration. For instance, I strongly object to the enormous number of supplementary questions, some of which are of the most trivial character. Some of them really do not dignify the Question Paper. They deal with all sorts of topics from pitch and toss to manslaughter, and have no effect on the legislation of the House, and in fact nothing to do with the case.
There is great force in the argument that all-night sittings should be abolished. I have been compelled to attend all-night sittings, and I resent the suggestions of the Mover of the Motion that men over 35 ought not to sit after eight o'clock. I am advancing into the sere and yellow leaf, and I shall be 74 next month, and I resent any imputation that I am physically or mentally incapable of taking my share in the Debates. All-night sittings are a waste of time and of public money. I am told that each all-night sitting costs £2,000, taking everything into consideration—light, service, salaries of Members and everything else. That is a sinful waste of public money. Not long ago, we sat until 8.30 in the morning, and the result of our labours for that night was the alteration of one word in the first Clause of a Bill of nineteen Clauses. Later, we sat considering the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and one of the expiring laws was the Lunacy Act. We deliberately sat here at 4.30 in the morning considering the extension of that Act. If any evidence of the necessity for the extension were needed, it was in the fact that we sat at 4.30 in the morning considering the question.
On the whole, I see no reason for altering the Standing Orders, for I do not like to see the traditions of this House changed. I may perhaps be called a professional politician, but I have some responsibilities outside this House, and I find it very difficult sometimes to come here in the morning and deal with my post bag and do my duty inside the House. With the abolition of
unnecessary questions and all-night sittings, I am content with the present Rules of the House, and I shall be reluctantly compelled to vote against the Motion.

Mr. FOOT: We congratulate the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) upon the birthday which he will have next month, and those of us who have had the opportunity of being associated with him in this House hope that he will be here for many years to give us the advantage of his experience. I would ask the Mover of this Motion to take into consideration that there is a long history behind this question. There never came a time in the history of this House when Members suddenly decided that 2.45 was the best time to meet. In this matter we have to learn something from the wisdom of our ancestors and from their experience. The hon. and gallant Member for South Derbyshire (Major Pole) spoke of a new Member coming into the House and watching its procedure, and being in a position to make the best suggestions for its improvement. But in a certain sense we are all new Members, for those who have been in the House seven years or 17 years can still have some advantage from the experience which has been gained through the generations. I am quite sure that he will be willing to defer to that experience as much as those who have been in the House a few years longer.
5.0 p.m.
There was a time when the House met at eight o'clock in the morning, and a fine was imposed upon Members who were not present at Prayers at that time. I am glad to know from my experience here that the hon. and gallant Member would not be one of those to be often fined. I imagine, however, that from the Front Ministerial Bench a substantial contribution would be made from time to time. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is looking out for some new form of tax, he might reimpose the fine that was placed upon Members of this House who were not present at Prayers unless they could show good reason. Ministers are those who most need praying for, and yet they are those who are mostly absent at the opening of the House. On certain occasions, the House met at six
o'clock, but in those days they sat only until the middle of the cay. In the Lobby adjoining this Chamber there is a Journal of the House in which a page was torn out by that very irate monarch James I, and the ground put forward by that monarch for tearing out that sheet was that the Members had done their business by candlelight, and that it had been done after the ordinary time of the sittings of the House. At that time the House never sat during hours when artificial light was needed. Later on there was a famous Debate at the time when the Grand Remonstrance was passed. One of the outstanding features of that Debate was that it went on to one or two o'clock in the morning and all the writers speak of that as being an exceptional occurrence. Later on came the slacker days of the Restoration when the people of this country very unwisely turned day into night and sat late, and met at four o'clock in the afternoon. We are all aware that some of the most famous speeches in this Chamber (or the Chamber that was here before the Fire) were made not merely late at night, but in the early hours of the morning. The hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) although he may not remember it personally, will recall the speech of William Pitt when he took his illustration from the morning sunlight that came through the windows of the House of Commons. In later years it was decided that 2.45 in the afternoon was the best time for the House of Commons to meet.
My difficulty in this House is to keep abreast with all that is happening. The trouble is not attendance in this Chamber, but keeping up with one's correspondence. I sympathise with my brother Members when I see them carrying away from the post office a large bundle of letters with which they have to deal. That is an important part of the ordinary duties of a Member of this House, and I ask, how are we to keep pace with that work if from the early part of the day until the evening all our time is occupied by attending to our duties in this House? I suppose that it is a feature of the work of every Member of Parliament that not only has he to keep himself acquainted with the public work that comes before
him, but he has also to keep in constant touch with the affairs of his constituency. We find it difficult to comply with these obligations even under the present procedure, and if we are unable to support the Resolution which has been brought before the House, it will not be because we do not approve of the arguments which have been used in its favour, but because we think that there are other arguments which have not been taken into account. For that reason I associate myself with the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith), and, in view of what has been said, I hope that the Motion will not be pressed.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Lees-Smith): I should like to begin by congratulating the Mover of this Motion upon introducing this subject which, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has not actually been debated on the Floor of the House for at least half a century. It is true that there have been Select Committees and discussions on the dinner hour and such subjects, but, looking back as far as 1880, I find that there have been no Debates specifically on the question whether we should meet in the morning or in the afternoon. It has already been pointed out that this is a subject upon which we are not divided on party lines, and I may say at once that the Government propose to ask the House to give a free vote on this question.
If the House decide to appoint a Select Committee, the Government will not resist that proposal, but there are certain considerations which I wish to put before hon. Members who have based high hopes on this particular line of advance. The proposal is certainly attractive from the point of view of the personal comfort and convenience of hon. Members. We do, as a matter of fact, lead rather abnormal lives, and many of us, especially those who have been here for some time, feel that the penalty we pay for being in this particular occupation is that we do lose what those in other occupations have, namely, the evening hours which they are able to devote to family life.
The subject, however, must be considered from the point of view of its effect upon the efficiency of the House, and, although the Government
are quite ready to accept the proposal to set up a Select Committee, I think it is only fair that I should explain what appears to be a number of difficulties which this proposal involves, and with which the Select Committee, and finally the House itself, would find itself confronted. The proposal is that the House should meet at 11 o'clock in the morning and adjourn at 7 o'clock at night. The first question that suggests itself to new Members with the experience they have already had is that it is clear that the House should met at 11 o'clock in the morning, and it is not equally clear that it would rise at 7 o'clock at night. At present there is a certain limit. Eleven o'clock is getting late, and there is a natural objection on the part of the House against suspending the Eleven o'clock Rule. At one time we used to have a Twelve o' Clock Rule, but I am told by those who have had long experience that, as a matter of fact, the alteration of the Twelve o' Clock Rule to the Eleven o'clock Rule has led to an increase in the number of times the rule has been suspended. I have looked up the figures for the last two months and I find that the House sat 42 times and on 16 nights it sat after eleven o'clock. That is to say, the Eleven o' Clock Rule was suspended during more than one-third of the Session. It would, of course, be far easier to suspend the Seven o' Clock Rule. There would be no reason against it; there would be a large margin, and it would only mean asking Members to have their dinner here instead of somewhere else. If the Seven o' Clock Rule were suspended, it would not necessarily mean that the House would rise at eleven o'clock. The House sits as long as the Debate continues.
It is doubtful, therefore, whether this proposal is going to lead to a great increase in the comfort of hon. Members at the end of the day, in consequence of the earlier hour of meeting. Another consideration which I should like hon. Members to bear in mind is the question of how the sittings of the House at the times suggested are going to harmonise with the effective work of the Standing Committees. I know there are many hon. Members who have had a long experience of our Standing Committees, and I think they have now been
accepted as a central part of the mechanism of the House, and they are probably the most successful experiment which the House has made in its procedure reforms for the last 30 years. Up to the present the whole basis of the Standing Committee system has been that, with the exception of rare occasions, the House and the Standing Committees have not been sitting at the same time. Often we find three Committees sitting at the same time and there are 200 Members frequently engaged on Standing Committees upstairs. It is not very easy to see how those hon. Members can properly do their work upstairs and downstairs at the same time.
I am told that there have been only six occasions during the last year in which the Standing Committees sat at the same time as the House, and the experience has been that Members will not stay in the Standing Committee if the House is dealing with a very interesting subject, and often it has been found very difficult to form a quorum on such occasions. I think it is fairly clear that if there is something taking place in the House which is of general interest, you cannot get Members of Parliament to attend the Standing Committees, and on many occasions they fail to get a quorum. With regard to the proposal that the House and the Committee should sit on alternate days, I might point out that, of course, the reason why the Standing Committees were set up was to save the time of the House, the object being that the Standing Committees should be legislating in the morning and the House should be legislating in the afternoon. If the House and the Standing Committees are going to meet on separate days, the very purpose of preventing congestion in the House for which they were established would be defeated. I think that hon. Members should bear that in mind, because anything which weakens the Standing Committees will undoubtedly weaken the effectiveness of the House as a whole, and it will, moreover, largely defeat the object of this Motion. If we wish for some machinery by which we could effectively prevent ourselves from sitting up very late, it would be far better to try to strengthen and extend the Standing Committees and to develop that machinery for the devolution
of the business of the Blouse, rather than weaken the machinery which already exists.
There is one other consideration which I think hon. Members should bear in mind, and which, certainly in the view of those Members of the Government with whom I have had the opportunity of discussing this matter, is by far the most important. The Debate up to the present has not made it clear whether it is expected that, if the House met at 11 o'clock in the morning, Ministers should spend their time in this House or in their Departments. Ministers in this House are really acting in a double capacity. They are Members of Parliament, with the obligation of a Member of Parliament to attend Divisions and so on, and at the same time they are the heads of the various Departments of State. I think it is essential, not only to the success of the Government, but to the success of this House, to provide Ministers with the best conditions for properly controlling their Departments.
Many of the most vital decisions of Parliament are made, not by legislation in this House, but as acts of executive policy. For instance, the Naval Conference from beginning to end depends upon a series of executive decisions. Ministers cannot control their Departments, they cannot do their work as Ministers, except inside the Departments themselves. Any proposal that Ministers should do their work here during the morning is quite impracticable. They must see their officials. They have to be able to see any official at a moment's notice, and often several at a time; it is necessary that they should have their files of documents ready to hand; it is essential that for some hour; of the day during the morning, when the House would be sitting, they should be present in their Departments. But, unless there is going to be some entire revolution, Ministers must at the same time be present in this House. If they are not present, the Government will be defeated. There are 52 Ministers, and, unless a Government has a very substantial majority, in all normal times the votes of these Ministers are essential in the Division Lobbies of the House.
Here is a conflict which speakers in the Debate up to the present have not attempted to resolve. I think it would
be found that Ministers would in fact have to attend Divisions here, and the result of that would be that they would not be able properly to control their Departments. They would have to act very largely upon the advice of their permanent officials. That would lead to a great increase in the strength of the Civil Service, and a decrease in the powers of Ministers; and we have to face the fact that that might lead to a decrease of the powers of this House, because, if Ministers are not in effective control of their Departments, the House cannot be in effective control of the Departments for which the Ministers are responsible. The Government are prepared to accept a Select Committee if the House so desires, but it is necessary to point out that a Select Committee discussing this one issue by itself, and not discussing general considerations, would, I am fairly convinced, on the grounds that have been stated, come to a conclusion adverse to this proposal. For that reason I think that hon. Members should take into consideration, before this Motion is pressed to a Division, what are the actual difficulties in the way, which it has been only fair frankly to put before them.

Mr. WALLHEAD: May I be permitted to put a question? Would the Government be prepared to consider the sitting of the House at, say, two o'clock in the afternoon, and make the Sittings under the Standing Orders conclude, say at ten o'clock? That hour earlier at night would make a tremendous difference to a large number of Members of the House, and I do not think that it would hamper Ministers to any large extent.

Mr. LEES-SMITH: I am afraid that I am not in a position, sitting here alone, to give an answer to a question of that sort. At present the only statement I make is with regard to the actual Motion before the House.

Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Like other Members who have spoken, I rise in this Debate, not in any sense as the representative of a party, but merely to express an individual view, which in my case is drawn from an experience so lengthy that I am afraid it almost disqualifies me, in the eyes of the hon. and gallant Member for South Derbyshire (Major Pole), from having an opinion
worth listening to. A year or two ago I was taken to an amusing play in Paris, in which the hero was a young and able trade unionist who became in turn the Secretary of the General Confederation of Labour, a Member of Parliament, and a Minister. As a foil to him there was an old Marquis, and, in the course of the conversation between them, while the young trade unionist was expounding his views, the Marquis interjected, "Ah, so my grandfather used to say." "Then was he a revolutionary?" asked the trade unionist. "No," was the reply, "he was a reactionary." Here we have the Mover and Seconder of this Motion, and the hon. and gallant Member for South Derbyshire, who feel that they are making a novel and even a revolutionary proposal suited to our new times, when in fact they are trying, as the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot) has reminded them, to take us back three centuries. Incidentally, it is not to be supposed that, when the hour of meeting was eight o'clock in the morning, as much complaint was not found with the conduct of Members, with their absence from discussions, with their eagerness to get out to dine, or with the hours that they kept, as is the case to-day. Lord Clarendon makes it a subject of complaint that the Long Parliament kept disorderly hours by sitting until two p.m.; and one of your predecessors, Mr. Speaker, in the same Parliament remonstrated:
Against the rush of Members betwixt twelve and one mid-day, such that he was feigne to tell them they were unworthy to sit in this great and wise assembly that would so rush forth to their dinners.
If I may be permitted to make a suggestion to the hon. and gallant Member for South Derbyshire, it is that, while the older ones among us owe to the later arrivals a patient and an open mind in the hearing of new proposals that they may have to put before us, they should not assume that, because a thing is old, it is therefore bad, that because it has a precedent it is therefore of no use, or that because it is a growth it is therefore an evil growth. The hon. and gallant Member says that even our Constitution is a mere growth—it has never been thought out. Contrast it with the constitutions which have been thought out and carefully written down. Which type of Constitution, on the whole, has served best the development, the growth, the peace and order of the community? It
is rash to suppose that, even if the hon. and gallant Member selected the half-dozen colleagues whom he thought most suited to join him, to rewrite the British Constitution, he would be really successful in producing institutions more suited to the needs of the country than those which have grown by degrees out of those needs themselves, and which have been proved by the experience of generations.
Coming more closely to the question before us, the main proposal, though other suggestions have been thrown out in the course of the discussion, is that we should meet in the morning—11 o'clock seems to be the hour assumed—and adjourn at seven o'clock in the afternoon, instead of meeting in the afternoon and adjourning at 11 o'clock at night. As regards that proposal, I find myself in, I think I may say, complete agreement with all that has been said by the Postmaster-General. No doubt politicians live an abnormal life. No doubt, when we discharge our duties fully, it puts a great strain on the Members of this House, both physically and mentally. I am very glad that there are so many new Members of the House to carry back to their constituents the knowledge that this House is not a place for idleness, and to help to remove the idea that we who give up our lives as professional politicians—I have never disclaimed that—to the public service, have really a soft and "cushy" job that makes no demand upon our physique and upon our minds. It is one of the hardest and most laborious tasks that anyone can be set; but would it really be made easier by such a change as is proposed, and is such a change, indeed, practicable?
Like the Postmaster-General, I would ask the House if it has considered how the Committee work of the House is to be done if the House is to meet in the morning at 11 o'clock? There are the Private Bill Committees. We know how important they cam be in regard to public needs as well as immediate private needs. The Government the other day took special measures to expedite Private Bills as an act of public policy. Therefore, do not treat Private Bills as merely selfish things. Although, according to the technical language of this House, they are Private Bills, they deal with public interests,
and they may be of the gravest importance. There are also the Select Committees, and there are the Standing Committees. When are they to do their work if the House is to meet at 11 o'clock? Either they must begin work at eight o'clock or earlier, or, when the House rises at seven o'clock, those Committees must be summoned to meet, and Members of the House will have to pursue their work into the hours of the night, not on the business of the House as a House, but on the business of the House in Committee. But in truth that is not possible. Select Committees to some extent, Private Bill Committees to a very great extent, must be carried on within the ordinary business hours of the day, in order that business people—outsiders, not Members of the House—whose attendance is required may be present at their deliberations. I would beg hon. Members to consider most carefully any suggestion that these Committees should sit at the same time as the House sits. I know that occasionally it ha" to be done, but I think it should be an exception, only used on very important occasions; because one of two things must happen. Either the Standing Committee must lose its fully representative character, by reason of many of its Members wishing to attend the sitting of the House, and in that case all the work will have to be done over again on the Floor of the House, and we shall have lost the advantage that we hoped to attain by sending a Bill to Committee: or the House itself will be impoverished, will be denuded of its Members, because they are engaged on Committee.
I have been now for 38 years a Member of this House. I can remember, as a boy, sitting under the gallery, or in the gallery upstairs, and watching the House, at intervals, for some years earlier—I dare say another 10 years. If I look back to my earliest memories of the House, and imagined myself sitting again in that gallery and looking down, what is the first thing that would strike me? It would be the absence of Ministers—and ex-Ministers, for I am not talking in any party sense and what I say applies to Ministers of every party. The Government are less in touch with the House and, through the House, with currents of opinion in the country, because the work of Ministers has become so absorbing
that they cannot give as much attendance on that bench as they used to do. The second thing that I should mark is that Members themselves sit in the House much less than was the case in my early days.
The hon. and gallant Member for South Derbyshire said that we are not meant to listen to speeches. I beg respectfully to differ from him. If we are not meant to listen to the speeches in Parliament, the very name has no meaning, the place has no meaning. Certainly, we come here with certain broad ideas which have been discussed in the country. On those broad questions of principle we have taken up one attitude or another, and it is probable that discussion will do little or nothing to change our opinions. We have thought matters out, we have gone into them, and it is not without consideration that we have placed ourselves where we are, and it is unlikely that anything new can be said of sufficient consequence to change our minds. But that is not the case when we come to the details of a Measure, or when we come to discussions in Supply. Anyone with any experience of this House knows that again and again votes have been changed by the Debates. Nothing is more untrue than to say that in this House votes are never changed by the speeches. Votes are often changed, and, what is more, Measures are changed, without ever coming to the vote, because the general sense of the House, as shown in the discussions, is more powerful than even a Minister with a great majority behind him. The Minister finds that he cannot sustain his case, cannot force down a case without reason, even with a great party majority.
I am not one who treats our Debates as of little account. I regret the habit which is growing up of Members waiting to make a speech, which often has no relation to what has gone before, and leaving the House as soon as they have made their speech without waiting to hear even one speech in reply to their observations. I do not believe that would have been possible when I first entered the House; the general sense of the House would have been so set against it. The absence of Ministers and the comparative poorness of the attendance of Members do not arise from the fact that this is a generation less anxious to perform its functions.
They arise from the enormous strain, immensely increased, which is put upon Ministers and Members alike by the growth and complexity of public business. You will not overcome that by asking Members to meet at eleven o'clock in the morning. As I have said, either they would have to come at eight o'clock to do their Committee work, and would sit as long hours, or their Committee work would not be well done, because they would be engaged at the same time as the House is sitting. The authority of Standing Committees would be destroyed, and the House would have to do on Report and to hear on Report all that ought to have been done and the speeches which ought to have been made in the Committee. I am taking this from the House of Commons point of view. I agree with what the Postmaster-General said—all Members who have served in Governments know the temptations which beset Ministers—that the temptation to suspend the Seven o'clock Rule would be infinitely greater than it is to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule; and just as we have found again and again that the earlier commencement of a Session in the year seldom leads to its earlier termination, so it would be found that an earlier meeting for a particular sitting would not lead to an earlier hour for its termination.
Let me consider one other question. I have already said that I have never repudiated for myself the term of "professional politician"—in the sense that, entering politics early, they have been the principal business of my life, and to the service of this House during its Sittings I have always subordinated all other engagements; but I should consider it a disaster if the House adopted such hours as made it impossible for men who cannot free themselves from all other business to be Members of it. We want to be in the broadest and the widest sense a representative institution. We want for the full discharge of our work the experience which is brought by men of all types from all kinds and conditions of life, and to say that our hours shall be such as make it impossible for anyone who is not in a position to give his whole time to politics to be a Member of this House and to do his duty by it would seem to me to condemn us to impoverishment and to deprive us of an experience which is invaluable and
the absence of which would quickly show itself in our legislation and our administration. The hon. Member who moved or seconded this Motion spoke of the hours of the House having been adopted because in old days this House was treated as a club. I do not think it was any more a club in the old days than it is in these days. When the new Houses of Parliament were built I believe somebody observed that they were the finest club house in London, and club house being shortened to club, people have talked of it as the finest club in London. There is, thank goodness, a club able spirit among Members. Our social relations can be pursued no matter on which side of the House we sit; whatever our party differences we may be personal friends; but, in the sense that these hours were chosen merely as a matter of convenience or to suit social habits, I do not believe there is any foundation for the belief of the hon. Member opposite.
The hon. Members who present this Motion start out by saying that the House has become a whole-time job. They are themselves whole-timers, and regard themselves as such at the present time. They have nothing else to do, and it seems simple to them to do their work within the hours that are most convenient to them. But even as a whole-time job you cannot do it within the hours they name, and are not the busiest men the hardest working men in the House, the Ministers, not to have a little consideration? Must not we have a little consideration for their efficiency and for their control of their offices. The Postmaster-General quite rightly said that it is only through Ministers that this House can control administration, and if Ministers lose control of their offices the House loses control also. Ministers have to see their officials to do the work, and there is a certain amount of work which can only be done in the offices, and they have to see other people and to see them within the business hours of those people. They cannot postpone the whole of the work that they now do in the morning or the early afternoon until after the House rises at seven or eight o'clock.
For my part, I should have liked to see some effort made to apply that Rule which was passed in 1918 enabling the
House to adjourn on certain days after Questions in order that those days might be devoted to Committee work. In practice, the House has never found it convenient to adopt that process. It is possible that if the system of Committees further develops it may be necessary, and it may be possible, to devote certain days to Committees and certain other days to the House; but as long as the Committees and the House have to meet on the same day and as long as Ministers have not only to discharge a duty in Parliament but to direct and administer great offices, I do not believe that we shall find any hours more convenient to the public service than these which we maintain. We might find other hours more convenient to individual Members, particularly to the least hard worked and the most idle among them: but, just in proportion, Members who are in the Government will be inconvenienced by any great change from the hours which are now set. If this Motion is carried to a Division, I shall vote against it, and I do not think any report from a Select Committee is likely to produce new arguments in its favour which would cause me to alter my mind.

Mr. J. JONES: In the list of Motions that we have a right to bring before the House in the event of success in the Ballot, this subject stands in a very prominent place. A most remarkable thing about the Debate is that all the speeches that are supposed to be against the Motion are in its favour. We come here in the morning if we are fortunate enough to be selected on. Committees, though we are generally put on Committees that we know nothing whatever about and are kept off those we know something about. I have had, not 38 but 11 years' experience, and I have never yet been placed on a Committee of the details of which I have had much knowledge. There are other Committees upon which I could do some good but I have never had a chance of a snap at them, and I am not the only one. Even some of those who are on the Front Bench now have gone through the same experience. We are not asking for the time to be arranged to suit our convenience, but to suit the convenience of the people we represent. We are supporting the Motion with a view to the appointment of a Committee to go into
the whole business connected with the working of the House. We are told that Ministers are not able to do their work in the time allotted them. I have heard of Ministers who have never tried to do the work they were paid for. They are conspicuous by their absence even at the most critical moments.
We think the time has arrived when a radical alteration should be made in the methods of procedure and the hours of business of the House. We get here in the morning, if we are on a Committee, and the House starts in the afternoon. We talk nothing for a very long time. About 11 o'clock we start talking less than nothing. During an all-night sitting we might as well be sitting on the Thames Embankment as far as the work accomplished for the benefit of the electorate is concerned. We are asking that the past shall be allowed to be forgotten and that we shall adapt our procedure to modern methods. Why should we not do the same as our great public authorities do Why cannot we departmentalise the work of the House and have large Committees, representing all parties, dealing with all the questions Parliament is likely to be called upon to deal with, and let each Minister be chairman of a Departmental Committee dealing with the business of his own Department. [An HON. MEMBER: "They will get halos."] No, they will not get halos; they will get brickbats. If things go on as they are at present, the work of the Departments will get so congested that no one man will be able to control them. It is not merely the Minister who should be held responsible. Parliament is responsible in the last resort. A Minister is the representative of Parliament, but he is not the boss of it.
I suggest that this Select Committee should go into the whole procedure of Parliament, and bring forward some commonsense method of dealing with our business. I am not particular about the hours, because I have enjoyed myself best after hours. Yon can start at 11 o'clock at night and keep on until nine in the morning if you wish. That does not make the difference. What really makes the difference is the way you take the work in hand. The average Member of the House is nothing else than a voting machine. We back bench Members are told we must not do this and
we must not say that, and we are asked to hold our tongues. Every Member of the House has equal rights and, if we have equal rights, we ought to have equal responsibilities and equal opportunities. A large number of us are barred from real service. We are simply here to go into the Lobby when the bell rings. That is not good enough for some of us. I was led to understand that we are all agreed upon an alteration in the method of conducting the business of the House. Hours are not the main question. It is the method and the conditions under which business is done. Hours are secondary altogether. A Select Committee is essential, and all parties ought to agree that the time has arrived when some reorganisation of our business arrangements should be taken into consideration and, therefore, I am going to vote for the Motion.

Mr. EDE: I am going to follow my hon. Friend with every confidence, as I always do, into the Lobby. I feel that it is high time a Select Committee was appointed to consider the matter. If the two Front Benches are so sure that their case is absolutely sound, they can have no hesitation in allowing the Committee to sit. I have always found that, when it has been a conflict between the Private Members' opinion and the Front Bench Members' opinion, the more unanimous the two Front Benches are, the more likely it is that the back bench Members are right. There is in these matters apparently a very good understanding, quite irrespective of the people who happen to sit on the Front Benches, that on these matters the back benches should always be resisted. It is very unfortunate that a mere illustrative remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) has been seized upon as the basis of this discussion. I do not think he meant more than to illustrate his remarks by mentioning the time of 11 in the morning. I admit that there is some weight in what has been said by the Postmaster-General and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) with regard to the duties of Ministers, but changing conditions may quite easily admit of change in methods of control in the Departments, and I do not think the last word has been said on that subject.
I wish chiefly to complain about this: We have a habit of sitting on until a few minutes past 12. The hours of the House were fixed at a time when practically every Member lived within walking distance, but Members no longer all live within the City of Westminster. A very substantial number, especially on these benches, find the rents charged in the City of Westminster, beyond their means while the Parliamentary salary remains at its present figure. After eight minutes past 12 there is no train to the district where a number of Members, including myself, live, and we have to wait for a half-hourly tram service just underneath Boadicea's statue. I sometimes see the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) there. Of course he has not the opportunities that some of us have owing to his habits of finding solace for such discomfort. I see several hon. Members, including the Deputy-Speaker of the House, waiting there. Towards the end of last Session there was an agreement whereby, when the 11 o'clock Rule was suspended, there was a general effort to get the House up before midnight, but it was very disconcerting when certain Members opposite felt that their remarks in support of someone else sitting beside them on some trivial point were so important that we must go on till a quarter-past 12, and we were put to the discomfort of a tram journey lasting for 40 or 50 minutes. I would far sooner have an all-night sitting that lasted till six o'clock in the morning than I would sit until a quarter or half-past 12. I do not like all-night sittings, but, from the point of view of our personal comfort and fitness for duty the next day, they are preferable to sittings that end up just after midnight.
I believe in this, as in other countries, the system of parliamentary government is on its trial. People outside the House are not nearly as much impressed with the efficiency of Parliament and the value of its great traditions as people inside the House are apt to be. We have seen in a number of European countries the system of parliamentary government scrapped and dictatorship set up in its place. I believe a very great deal of the ordered progress this country has been able to make has been due to the faith the people have had in the efficiency of
parliamentary government to deal with the various situations that arise. The area of human affairs that we are attempting to govern by parliamentary government to-day is far greater than it has been in the past, and the duties placed upon individual Members of Parliament are greater than in the past, and if we imagine that hours fixed in the last century are the last word, I think we shall find that Parliament, as a machine, will break down. Not fixing myself to any hour which may have been incidentally mentioned by anyone in the course of the discussion, I feel that a case can be made out, in the experience of most of us, for an inquiry into the possibilities of the situation and, for that reason alone, I shall vote for the appointment of the Select Committee for which my hon. Friend asks.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. McSHANE: I rise with some reluctance following the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain). I thank those who heard him will agree that, if there was anything at all to be said for the continuance of the present practice, his extraordinarily rich and varied speech, in which he drew upon a wide experience, would have convinced any who may still have been doubtful about the continuance of the present system. I think that the Motion which has been moved this afternoon is so narrow in character that, as previous speakers on the Back Benches here have mentioned, it does not enable us to deal with or attempt to deal with the remedy which, in my opinion, inevitably must come. It is true that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham showed that those who sought to be revolutionaries in this matter were actually going back 300 years, but he also used another argument which mutually excluded his first point. He showed how rich was this constitution which was built up from the wisdom of centuries.
Similarly with regard to the Postmaster-General. I think, with great respect, that he was guilty of a perfectly clear non sequitur. He said that from the date that the time of the sittings had been changed from 12 o'clock to 11 o'clock a number of suspensions of the Eleven o'Clock Rule had taken place. It is not because the hour has been
changed from 12 o'clock to 11 o'clock that a number of suspensions of the Eleven o'Clock Rule have taken place. It is because of the increasing amount of business thrown upon this House. It is that which has made it necessary. Every Government is so overwhelmed with work that it must safeguard itself by moving the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule. Is not that precisely one of the most serious criticisms that can be made at the present time against the continuance of the present practice? If there is a formidable Opposition that cares to prevent business from being done, as I have in my short experience already seen in this House, it can on the most trivial and ridiculous matters, and with very serious detriment to the dignity of this House, carry on discussions for hours, when it is notorious that there is scarcely a quorum in the House to listen. Many Members are to be found asleep in the libraries—wisely so—and others may be attempting to pass the time in whatever way they possibly can find.
There were two speeches in the earlier part of this afternoon against this proposal both of which were extremely capable and well-delivered. They were the speeches of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) and the hon. Member for Middlesbrough West (Mr. K. Griffith). There were two things, which were the main burden of both speeches, with which I totally disagree. The first was that the work of this House is so exhausting and so compelling that if anyone is really sincere and anxious to do his duty as he ought to do it, he must be here at 11 o'clock in the morning and must continue in the House as long as the House sits, so compelling and so insistent is the work. Having put forward that as a reasonable argument in favour of the continuance of the present system, they both laboriously sought to show that that was not so. They showed how it was necessary sometimes for the enrichment, intellect and experience of this House that we should have within it men, who, in the earlier part of the day, were still in contact with the life of the country earning their own living. They cannot have it both ways. If it is so insistent and so compelling that one needs actually the whole day and part
of the night to do the work, surely that excludes the possibility of any man earning his livelihood outside, and therefore being able to do this work well and intelligently and as speedily as he ought to do it. Does not that also bring us to the same point which they make in favour of the continuance of the present system?
It was stated, I think on the part of the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford, more or less with a sneer, that one should not care to be a professional politician. If I may strike a personal note, I had, when I was young, a very hard life. I managed through my own efforts—if I may jump over what I shall never forget in a sentence or two—ultimately to get to the university. I became the headmaster of a large school. I was secure in my position. I was comfortable. I need not have troubled about anything at all. Yet no thoughtful person—and it is only a digression to show how it bears on the point with which I am dealing—with any imagination at all can look at our country and at the mass of our people to-day without being profoundly moved and urged, at any rate, to do something. It was therefore in that spirit, and in that spirit alone, that I jeopardised my whole future in order to do what I thought I might be able to do to help humble working men and women, the class from which I sprang. How can anyone suggest with a sneer that the life to which I have dedicated myself can be in any sense a life inferior to the life of any other professional man? How also can it be suggested or implied that we who deal here with the making of laws to protect children from poisonous food should in some extraordinary fashion be looked upon as inferior to the doctor who goes to prevent that child also from being poisoned from some other source? How can it be suggested that we who deal with maternity, with hospitals, and indeed with the whole ambit of human life in our law-making, are in any sense inferior in dedicating our lives to that work to those members of any other profession?
The truth is that the difficulty in which the House finds itself this afternoon is due, as I have said, to the narrow nature of the Motion. This Motion cannot be divorced from the procedure of the
House. I have looked on with amazement when the British House of Commons of 600 Members has sat in Committee. I have always heard it said that the best Committee is a Committee of three, with two of the members always absent. How it can possibly be suggested that with 600 Members acting as a Committee, with each of the 600 Members in the House having a right to speak, you can get efficient and effective business done is beyond me altogether. I think that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, to whom we all listened with such profound attention, got close to the point when he hinted at the extension of the Committee system. It is upon the extension and development of the Committee system that we are bound to make progress. Here, as my hon. Friend the Member for Silver-town (Mr. J. Jones) suggested, large numbers of the Members of the House remain more or less voting machines, and in a sense unemployed. We are anxious to do what we can to help in the work of this House, and to mould legislation which will benefit this country. There might be Committees upon which we might be specially interested, education, health or transport. If there were Committees set up based upon each Department, and upon which we should be distributed according to our predilections, I suggest that each day that passed we should save an enormous amount of the time of this House, and we should be able to work more intensively in regard to the business which we ought to undertake.
If a Division takes place, I shall certainly vote in favour of the Motion mainly because I consider, as has been said, that if the nation's work is to be done well, there must come a change in the procedure of this House. It is because I want to see the hope of democracy realised, and the machinery made more elastic that I have given expression to these opinions, and I shall certainly vote for the Motion.

Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: The interesting speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Walsall (Mr. McShane) has induced me to say a few words. The term "professional politician" has frequently been used in this Debate. I do not think that it has been used in any derogatory sense.

An HON. MEMBER: Oh, yes, by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford.

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, that was not so.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: I have listened to most of the speeches and that is not the impression I have gathered. I think the term was used in the sense of a man who devotes the whole of his time to work within this House. The hon. Member for Walsall told as how he resolved to devote all his life to the services of the country, and we appreciate his decision very much. The point upon which we laid such stress is not confined to hon. Members on this side of the House. A very weighty speech was made by the Postmaster-General in the same sense, namely, that we do not want to cut out from the service of this House the men who are in contact with the realities of the life of the country. The lawyers, the doctors—some of them—the leaders of commerce, the bankers—we want them here. As was well said by one speaker, the reason why this House is so valuable is that it consists of a mixture of all types. It is that mixture which makes it such a great Assembly. We hear a great deal about the decadence of Parliament, but there is very little weight in that remark. The country values its House of Commons and respects it.

The Mover and Seconder of this Motion said that their object was to carry on better the work of the nation. I think that the nation in a very short time would not want its work to be carried on by such an Assembly as would be produced by the effect of this Motion. We have only to look at the United States of America. The Congress there is not looked upon with the respect we should like to see paid to a popular Assembly. The remedy lies in our hands. I say this most respectfully. Let us shorten our speeches. Let us have a self-denying ordinance that no speech shall exceed 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour, except say on the Second Reading of Bills, or when the House chooses to extend indulgence to speakers on certain occasions. If we made that self-denying ordinance and shortened our speeches, we should not have the sort of speech that one heard in "The Apple Cart," for instance, where the Prime
Minister gives a moat amusing parody, or perhaps I should say imitation, of many speeches one hears in this House, and I think that we should have far more time for real business. If we take a copy of the Debate in the OFFICIAL REPORT and go through it, what Member of this House could not shorten his speeches by one half? And we are all sinners in this respect. Sometimes we do not think out our speeches before we make them and, therefore, we cannot put our points concisely. If we did so, think of the happiness of the Press Gallery! The present hours of work would then be amply sufficient without the frequent suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule. Therefore, I suggest that shorter speeches and better considered speeches would be a remedy for the present state of things.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I am strongly in favour of the Resolution, and I am also in agreement with the view that we ought to have had something more far-reaching to meet the actual requirements of the House. Reference has been made to professional politicians, an unfortunate reference, which was intensified by the hon. Member referring to the American legislature as having been largely a failure on account of its having been composed of professional politicians. I am very glad that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) took no exception to the allusion as regards himself, and made no disclaimer. My own feeling is that we have more need for professional politicians, in the sense of people taking a deeper interest in the concerns of this House and of legislation generally than they do at the present time. Unfortunately, one section of the Press has adopted the systematic plan of ridiculing Parliament as of practically no use. That is a very remarkable situation, which links up that section of the Press with the most revolutionary element prevalent in this country. That is a very dangerous situation.
Whoever may come here to discharge their duties must realise that business is congested. Speaking from my experience of over seven years, I submit that the House is overloaded and that there is a strong necessity for taking in hand the working system of the House. The House becomes a fiasco on many a night when we are supposed to be dealing with
serious business and we find hon. Members speaking against time, simply putting on the hours, while other hon. Members are waiting in the Lobbies or in the smoke room or elsewhere for the Division to take place. Would it not be possible for the sittings of the House on Mondays and Wednesdays to begin at the same hour as on Fridays, namely 11 o'clock? That would mean an earlier meeting and an earlier closing on those days. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, which days are allotted for meetings of Standing Committees, we could meet at the usual hour and the Committees could meet before the House meets. If we had an extension of our Committee system we should be able to find work in Committees for those hon. Members who are not at present looked upon as being necessary for Committee service, as compared with others. The allusion which has been made by the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) is perfectly correct. Many of us have not opportunities of sharing in the responsibilities of Committee work, and we are faced with the necessity of simply being in attendance in the House to listen to speeches which go on for ever so long, subject to no time limit. That is unfortunate.
With regard to Debate, as in our public authorities, the plan could be adopted of special allowance being made in exceptional circumstances for those who are bringing forward Measures, or who have any special business to put before the House. There is great necessity for an extension of the Committee system in order to give opportunities for the transaction of business which is not getting fair consideration. The hon. Member who referred to America overlooked the fact that each of the States has its own separate legislature. A question was put to the Prime Minister to-day whether he would appoint a Secretary of State for Wales, but he could not see his way to do it. We have a Secretary of State for Scotland, who had an unfortunate part to' play yesterday in the Naval Conference, for whereas the Free State Government was represented by a gentleman who spoke on behalf of that country, the poor Secretary of State for Scotland was not able to say anything. There is need for consideration of the particular requirements of the country as
a whole and of parts of the Kingdom being dealt with by the countries themselves. When the two Front Benches are agreed upon a position, we might as well say that it is time for us to vote against it. The rank and file have to face the fact that when the two Front Benches say, "It would be very inconvenient for us," the House is "us." We of the rank and file have our opportunity to-day to say to the Postmaster-General, as representing the Government, that we want this matter to be looked into. We are going to have a free vote to-day. That is a blessing. I hope that something practical will result from our proceedings.

Mr. MARKHAM: I have listened to the greater part of the speeches, and I have been struck with the unanimity of feeling that late sittings should be stopped at any cost. I do not believe that there is any considerable body of opinion on the Front Benches or the back benches in favour of the present pernicious system of late sittings on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday each week, which is the practice that we have had to endure. We lack unanimity, however, as to the method by which it is suggested that late sittings could be abolished. I do not think that it is necessary to consider the advisability of the House meeting at 9, 10 or even 11 o'clock in the morning. I do suggest that the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule should be abolished and some alternative rule brought in providing that if business has not been finished at 11 o'clock one evening, the House should meet 1¾ hours earlier next day, say, at one o'clock instead of 2.45 p.m. Under that arrangement the work would be done just as efficiently. I think that hon. Members would rather miss their lunch time than lose their sleep, and would rather miss their lunch time than lose their last train or tram home. When there is a residue of work to be done, there would be less objection to the Friday sitting being extended from 4 o'clock, rather than that the Eleven o'clock Rule should be suspended on other days and the sittings extended very late, as was evidenced quite recently when we sat until 8 o'clock next morning. By a little re-arrangement of hours it could be so managed that late sittings could be abolished without interfering with Committee work or with the privileges or procedure of this House. For these reasons,
I support most heartily the proposal that the whole matter should be brought before a Select Committee. The way in which late sittings are to be avoided is for a Select Committee to investigate, and I see no reason why a Select Committee should not go forward to investigate it.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND TROYTE: I intervene because of one remark made by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour). He suggested that Monday would be a suitable day on which to meet at 11 o'clock. I would point out that a great many of us live in the country. The week-end is the only time we can visit our constituencies and our homes, and there are no trains that can get us here by 11 o'clock. Therefore, the suggestion that Monday should be a day for an earlier sitting is the worst suggestion that could be made, because it would completely knock out the week-end of those of us who live in the country, and would prevent us from visiting our constituencies and our homes, unless we travelled back on Sunday. The Postmaster-General and the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) showed how impossible the Motion is, and I heartily agree with them in opposing it.

Mr. SANDHAM: I have been struck by two forms of complex which seem to predominate in this House. The first is the complex that the expenditure of this nation should be governed by the income of the nation. I object to that. I object also to the complex that intimates to back benchers that if we want anything in the form of alteration of procedure in this House, we have perforce to consult the convenience of the Front Bench Members. I object to that. If we are out for developing a new sense of democracy, surely it is the will of the greatest number in this House that should prevail. Is that the practice? I submit that it is not. The strongest arguments that were put forward by the Postmaster-General, in reply to the first portion of the Debate, gave one to understand that the proposal of the Resolution was almost impossible of accomplishment because of the position of the Ministers and the Governmental Departments. Equally important work is transacted in first-rate city councils in this country, and if the city councils can conduct their business in a satisfactory way by departmental work, this House, provided it has the will to do it, Can develop sufficient capacity so to
arrange its duties and its times as to conform to the will of the largest number in this august assembly. What we want to do as Members is, in the first place, to express our will and to say that we want an alteration in procedure. Too much attention has been paid this afternoon to the detail work which should automatically go before the Select Committee which is to be appointed, and with the experience given us by Members of the two Front Benches there is surely ample evidence to justify some very interesting reports from a Select Committee, if the House decides to appoint it. I hope we shall have the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House so that this Select Committee may give us its report with new ideas as to the procedure of the House and the better use that might be made of the time at our disposal.

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: May I call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that what he wants done is not covered by the terms of the Motion? They are confined to the hours of the sittings of the House and would not allow the larger question of procedure to be discussed at all.

Mr. LANG: I regret that it is not possible for me on this occasion to support my hon. Friends who have brought forward this Motion. My reasons are two. In the first place, the Motion commits us definitely to meeting at an earlier hour, and I am perfectly sure that will mean that I shall not be able to discharge my own duties properly to my constituents. There is a very serious postal business with which hon. Members representing industrial constituencies have to deal, and I think constituents are entitled to careful and ample attention from their representative on all germane matters which they submit to them. Sometimes constituents require attention on matters which may not be very germane, but it takes up a considerable amount of one's time. I should also be very sorry if, as a Member of this House, I am not to have any further association with what I may call the world outside. The danger here is not that we get too much contact with the world of law and commerce and religion, but that we may get too little. We may find ourselves marooned here with academic discussions about things which may not be very interesting and not always very important. May I
say with great respect that my observation since I came to the House of Commons leads me to believe that the people who pay the scantiest attention to our Debates are not the people who are engaged elsewhere? I have marvelled at hon. and learned Members, who are exceedingly busy in the day, who seem to come here very quickly and remain here during our Debates, and it would be a great misfortune if the House were to be deprived by earlier sittings of the services of men who by their industry and ability have made themselves masters in various departments of life, all of which can be brought to bear most usefully on the deliberations and decisions of this Assembly.
In view of the present position, I feel that the Motion might operate in a manner which I am sure hon. Members who support it would greatly regret. I am certain that there are many hon. Members who will find it impossible to remain Members of this House if the only income they are able to enjoy is the income which is paid to them as Members of Parliament. I think my hon. Friends may well consider the number of Members who find it essential to augment their income in other ways. They may not all practise in the Courts but many of them write for the Press, and that cannot be done while they are sitting in the Chamber. If the Motion is carried and the Select Committee reports in favour of meeting earlier, some people whom we want to see here might find it impossible to become Members of Parliament because their Parliamentary income by itself is certainly not sufficient. Some of my hon. Friends are in that happy position, which I envy but which I would not desire to alter, whereby they represent great working-class movements and are able to supplement their incomes by a salary, but I hope they will not forget the position of other hon. Members who, in order to do their duty properly to their constituents, have to augment their incomes in other ways.
Then, again, some of us have always found that we can do our best work towards evening and when I compare our proceedings at Question Time with our proceedings later on in the evening I do not know whether that is not also true of what takes place in this House. No doubt a case has been made out for developing the Committee work and the
method of approaching it, but I do not think a case has been made out for commencing the work of the House earlier in the day, and before we commence to tinker with a problem like that I think we should arrange for the whole matter to be fully canvassed and discussed otherwise there is a danger that our last state will be worse than our first. I came here with a desire to be of real service to the House and through the House to the community at large and my constituents in particular. I have considered this matter from that point of view. I must pay considerable attention to their correspondence and I must be here; and

if I am to be of any use in the Chamber I must be here to hear what is going on. During the Recess I wrestled with a manual of our procedure and a book written by one of the learned clerks at the Table. It gave me great assistance, but one can only grasp our Rules of Procedure when sitting in the Chamber and hearing what is being said and done. I am sorry to have to disagree with my hon. Friends on this subject but, as this is a free vote and as the Motion definitely pledges the House to meet at an earlier hour, I must oppose it.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 169; Noes, 139.

Division No. 115.]
AYES.
[6.40 p.m.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Quibell, D. J. K.


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Johnston, Thomas
Raynes, W. R.


Arnott, John
Jones, F. Llewellyn (Flint)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Ritson, J.


Baker, John (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Romeril, H. G.


Baldwin, Oliver (Dudley)
Kelly, W. T.
Rosbotham, D. S. T.


Barnes, Alfred John
Kennedy, Thomas
Rowson, Guy


Batey, Joseph
Kinley, J.
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Bennett, Capt. E. N. (Cardiff, Central)
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George
Sanders, W. S.


Bennett, William (Battersea, South)
Lathan, G.
Sandham, E.


Bentham, Dr. Ethel
Law, Albert (Bolton)
Sawyer, G. F.


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Law, A. (Rossendale)
Scrymgeour, E.


Bowerman Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Lawrence, Susan
Sherwood, G. H.


Broad, Francis Alfred
Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle)
Shillaker, J. F.


Bromley, J.
Leach, W.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Brooke, W.
Lee, Frank (Derby, N. E.)
Simon, E. D. (Manch'ter, Withington)


Brothers, M.
Lees, J.
Sinkinson, George


Buchanan, G.
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Sitch, Charles H.


Buxton, C. R. (Yorks, W. R. Elland)
Lindley, Fred W
Smith, Alfred (Sunderland)


Cameron, A. G.
Lloyd, C. Ellis
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Logan, David Gilbert
Smith, Frank (Nuneaton)


Charleton, H. C.
Longbottom, A. W.
Smith, Tom (Pontefeact)


Cluse, W. S.
Longden, F.
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lowth, Thomas
Snell, Harry


Compton, Joseph
Lunn, William
Stephen, Campbell


Cove, William G.
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Stewart, J. (St. Rolox)


Daggar, George
McEntee, V. L.
Sullivan, J.


Dallas, George
McKinlay, A.
Sutton, J. E.


Dalton, Hugh
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
McShane, John James
Thurtle, Ernest


Dukes, C.
Malone, C. L' Estrange (N'thampton)
Tinker, John Joseph


Ede, James Chuter
March, S.
Toole, Joseph


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Marcus, M.
Tout, W. J.


Edwards, E. (Morpeth)
Markham, S. F.
Townend, A. E.


Egan, W. H.
Marley, J.
Viant, S. P.


Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Mathers, George
Walker, J.


Gibbins, Joseph
Matters, L. W.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley)
Maxton, James
Watkins, F. C.


Gill, T. H.
Messer, Fred
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Gossling, A. G.
Mills, J. E.
Wellock, Wilfred


Gould, F.
Milner, J.
Welsh, James (Paisley)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Welsh, James C. (Coatbridge)


Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)
Morley, Ralph
West, F. R.


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Mort, D. L.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent)
Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood)


Groves, Thomas E.
Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick)
Whiteley, William (Blaydon)


Grundy, Thomas W.
Muff, G.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Muggeridge, H. T.
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Murnin, Hugh
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Hall, Capt. W. P. (Portsmouth, C.)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Haycock, A. W.
Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley)
Wilson, J. (Oldham)


Hayday, Arthur
Palin, John Henry
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Hayes, John Henry
Paling, Wilfrid
Wright, W. (Rutherglen)


Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)



Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield)
Perry, S. F.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Herriotts, J.
Pole, Major D. G.
Mr. McElwee and Mr. George


Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth)
Potts, John S.
Hardie.


Hoffman, P. C.
Price, M. P.



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Foot, Isaac
Morris, Rhys Hopkins


Albery, Irving James
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Ganzoni, Sir John
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)


Ammon, Charles George
Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Nathan, Major H. L.


Aske, Sir Robert
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Car'vn)
Naylor, T. E.


Ayles, Walter
George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea)
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert


Baillie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W.
Gillett, George M.
Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Owen, H. F. (Hereford)


Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Palmer, E. T.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Gray, Milner
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bennett, Sir Albert (Nottingham, C.)
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Power, Sir John Cecil


Benson, G.
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' w.)
Pybus, Percy John


Bevan, S. J. (Holborn)
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Ramsay, T. B. Wilson


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Ramsbotham, H.


Boyce, H. L.
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Zetland)
Rathbone, Eleanor


Bracken, B.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Buchan, John
Harris, Percy A.
Reynolds, Col. Sir James


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Hartington, Marquess of
Ross, Major Ronald D.


Cape, Thomas
Henderson, Arthur, Junr. (Cardiff, S.)
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.


Castle Stewart, Earl of
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Horrabin, J. F.
Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Salmon, Major I.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)
Hurd, Percy A.
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm., W.)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Sexton, James


Chater, Daniel
Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Christle, J. A.
Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Church, Major A. G.
Kindersley, Major G. M.
Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness)


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
King, Commodore Rt. Hon. Henry D.
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Smithers, Waldron


Colville, Major D. J.
Lang, Gordon
Somerset, Thomas


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cunliffe-Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Llewellin, Major J. J.
Stamford, Thomas W.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Strauss, G. R.


Davies, E. C. (Montgomery)
Lymington, Viscount
Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S. W.)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Thomson, Sir F.


Dickson, T.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Tudor


Duckworth, G. A. V.
Margesson, Captain H. D.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Edge, Sir William
Marjoribanks, E. C.
White, H. G.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Elmley, Viscount
Middleton, G.
Withers, Sir John James


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Mitchell-Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W.
Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff)


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Mond, Hon. Henry



Fermoy, Lord
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Fielden, E. B.
Montague, Frederick
Commander Southby and Captain




Sir William Brass.

Resolved,
That a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the possibility of this House meeting earlier in the day and rising at a more reasonable hour in the evening, and to recommend, if it thinks fit, the necessary alterations in the Standing Orders.

NAVAL PAY.

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: I beg to move,
That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that marriage allowances should be given to naval officers of the rank of lieutenant and above.
The Seconder of the last Motion, after seven years in this House flattered himself that he gave his whole time and attention and ability to the service of the House and the country. I can follow him in that respect. This is the beginning of my 21st year of service in this House. I, wish I could say what was said by the Mover of the last Motion, and claim the
indulgence that he had the right to claim for a maiden speech. None the less, I do ask for the indulgence of the House, and I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House, that I cannot present my case with that order and that skill that I would wish. My reason is, perhaps, absence of ability, but there is the further fact that it was only yesterday that I was fortunate enough to know that I should be able to move this Motion. The time since then has been taken up with putting some notes together and collecting a few of my friends to support me on what we look upon as a vital matter.
I know that I am engaged in a more or less thankless task, but it is a task in which I am very greatly interested, and I rejoice whole-heartedly that I have the opportunity of bringing the question forward, although I sincerely wish that there had fallen to someone more capable than myself the duty of bringing out the
necessary points. I am, and have been for many years, devoted to this subject. I dare say there is not a Member in the House who does not agree with me in saying that if you are too devoted to a subject that you bring forward you are apt, perhaps, to do it a little less than justice—less than would be the case if you were more of a free-lance and did not care quite so much to be absolutely accurate in every statement that you make. I know that the subject does not arouse any enthusiasm. It does not arouse even a hundredth part of the interest that it should arouse in Members of Parliament and in the constituencies that send them here. I do not know that even in dockyard constituencies Members are pushed as they should be to carry forward this matter. For that I will give the reason later. If country Members do not realise the intense importance of the Motion and of the marriage allowance for officers, it is because they do not realise the value of His Majesty's Navy, and of the officers, petty officers and ratings. That may seem to be a strange statement, but I think it is true. The country takes the Navy as an institution, a glorious and perfect institution. It takes it as a great existing fact, just like its own daily bread. The simile of the daily bread is not a bad one, for it is to the Navy and to the Navy alone, the Navy which keeps open the trade routes, that the country owes the ability to get its daily bread. There is no other force that I know of that could take its place and ensure the feeding of the people of this country.
We have just come through a great war. It was the Royal Navy and the Royal Navy alone that stood between this country and invasion, between this country and starvation, and between this country and intense suffering under the heel of invaders. This fact has not been sufficiently realised by the people of this country or by a large number of Members of this House. Perhaps that is because a great deal of the work that the Navy did was unrecognised and unrewarded. That is the whole fact. Battle clasps were not granted to the Navy. It was said that if they were granted to the Navy they would have to be granted also to the Army and the Air Force. That was not a valid argument. If any particular
service did remarkably good work it was entitled to the reward for that work.
The country cannot real se, and it is difficult to realise, I admit, that there might be such a thing as a Navy which is not contented with its terms of service. Yet without a Navy and without a guarantee of the security of our food routes it is perfectly clear to everyone that we should starve. Should an enemy stop our food supplies it could impose any terms it wished upon us without landing a single man on the shores of this country. Contentment is a beautiful thing and it is fortunately stable in this country. But discontent can grow and spread with amazing rapidity. We saw in the War one of the most disciplined nations in the world. When the men of that nation who were fighting discovered, as they did finally, that their women and chidren were starving at home, discipline fell away like a snowfall from a roof. The officer who knows that his wife and children are suffering because he has not sufficient money to keep them in comfort, fights with one hand tied behind his back.

Mr. BEN SMITH (Treasurer of the Household): And what about the men?

Commander SOUTHBY: They have got the allowance.

7.0 p.m.

Sir B. FALLE: Of course, the ratings have got the allowance, and if the hon. Member who interrupted will bear with me I will tell him about it. The Army and the Air Force have the marriage allowance. But the officer of the Navy to whom I have referred thinks and dreams in a bitter spirit. As he is a human being it is impossible that he should do otherwise. Let me give the recent history of the marriage allowance. The Admiralty a few years ago appointed a Naval Committee to go into the matter. The Committee was composed of senior officers. The most junior of them was a Commander, and he was the only one of that rank. My sympathy was entirely with him. No doubt he was a thoroughly honest man, but his position was an intolerable one. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why"?] A Commander, of course, is selected for his next post, and in most cases by the voices of his seniors in the Service. It surprised no one that the Committee
decided against marriage allowance; the older officers, to whom the marriage allowance did not mean the very existence of their wives and children, did not mind voting against the marriage allowance. They may have thought that it would be a good thing if the young naval officer did not marry. There is possibly a great deal to be said on that point. There was a great commander in Egypt at the time I was there, and the first thing he told his officers was, "You are receiving a large salary, but you must not marry. The moment you marry you go home." He recognised that the charges they would have to bear for wives and children might stop even the most foolhardy. The ancient birds on the naval committee decided that the young ones should not marry until they reached at least the rank of captain when they would not require the marriage allowance. That committee reported, and the Government sheltered behind their decision and have done so ever since. If that committee had been composed of officers junior to the rank of captain, I have no doubt that its decision would have been exactly the opposite, but in that case the Treasury would have been beaten, the Government would have had to pay up, and the Service would be more contented than it is at present.
The First Lord in 1922—First Lords have always held out for marriage allowances—put marriage allowances in his sketch Estimates. There are shadow Cabinets and there were sketch Estimates. He apologised when the time came very sincerely and very honestly at having to withhold marriage allowances which he himself had put into the sketch Estimates. When he was appealed to to allow marriage allowances as compensation for the children's allowances which had previously been taken away, he said it was only financial reasons that prevented him giving these allowances and concluded with the words, "Marriage allowances must be omitted this year." That was in 1922. In his last year of office as First Lord, Mr. Bridgeman introduced marriage allowances into the Navy Estimates, and those Estimates passed. It was with great joy that all those who wanted a contented personnel and contented officers saw that done. We
thought that we had got it at last, but the Government dashed that pleasant cup from our lips. That was as near as marriage allowances ever got to the open light. I trust the time may come when they will be granted, and I believe the party as a whole, the First Lord and the Navy are all in favour of them. As not infrequently happens, wisdom and experience went down before the pressure of finance.
I look to a Socialist Government to do better in this matter and to be more generous, than their predecessors. I know little of the financial situation, but I know that millions have been devoted to the extension of a certainly unsatisfactory dole. The Government should consider that this country's first and only real line of defence, which has kept this country immune and will, I trust, continue to keep it immune, the defence on which everything is based, only needs a comparatively small sum—about £350,000—to satisfy the most deserving branch of the Navy. An act of such common sense and courage would almost make me a Socialist, and force me to vote with them. In my part of the world, which is the headquarters of His Majesty's Fleet and the premier dockyard of the Empire, there were three Socialist candidates, and every one of them promised to bring in marriage allowances if they were returned. The Government should remember those promises.
Let me compare the senior service and the sister services. The comparison is unsatisfactory in the age at which the naval candidate is chosen, the physique required of him, the responsibilities imposed upon him, and the certainty of his being put "on the beach" not merely if he is responsible but if an accident occurs for which he may be only technically responsible. There was a great admiral in this House who had been on his bridge for more than a day and had gone below for a few hours' sleep, leaving the ship in charge of his second-in-command with orders to call him immediately if necessary. While he was getting his first doze the ship went ashore, and he was "beached." I know another admiral who was told to land his guns. He did so, and, while he was ashore, the second-in-command ran his ship ashore, and he was "beached." That does not obtain in the Army, and, as to the Air Force, if an
officer has an accident in the air, the subsequent proceedings do not interest him much. This Government-stands for equal pay for equal work. Let them put their theories into practice in this matter. If you make a careful survey of the pay in the various ranks of the Army and of the Navy, you find that in certain cases the naval officer can receive a little more than his Army brother, but that is the maximum, and only about 1 per cent. or 1½ per cent. ever arrive at that maximum. You might as easily say that the Members of this House are in receipt of £5,000 a year, because certain Members of great perseverance, extraordinarily ability, and all the other qualities succeed in reaching the Front Bench. You could not fairly say that the salary of a Member of Parliament was £5,000 a year, nor could you say that the maximum pay a naval officer "an obtain is the pay of a naval officer. The naval officer and the Member of Parliament are both under-paid, the one for the work that he has to do, and the other for the work that he ought to do.
It will be said that there are no serious complaints reaching the Admiralty. If the Admiralty were to read my post bag, they would realise that there are very serious complaints indeed, piteous complaints, threats, almost always anonymous because most of the women tell me, "We dare not give you our names because we have no confidence in the Admiralty, and, after all, we must first of all look after our husbands, our children, and ourselves." When I first received these complaints, I was surprised that anybody should distrust such an innocent, charming, and delightful Department as the Admiralty, but time and the continuity of the complaints make me believe that there may be something in them. It is practically impossible for the Royal Navy to protest. In the acting ranks it would be madness; they had better go out and hang themselves. The retired officers might protest, but there are few people in this world willing to undergo a certain amount of odium for the sake of others. The wives and dependants might protest, but the Service, man, woman and child, is the most loyal Service in the world. It may be that it is a little innocent in thinking that the Government would trouble about them if they keep quiet
and merely do their duty. The House knows the story of the bullfinch and the parrot. The bullfinch starved and died, but the parrot was fed; one sang a sweet song while the other screamed and made himself a nuisance.
I will recall something that occurred at the outbreak of the War. All the retired officers were called back in the first week, and when they got back to their ships they received pay and pension. They worked and took war risks alongside the men who were eligible for pension but only received pay. I and many of my friends raised the matter in this House, took it to the Admiralty, and worked as hard as we could in pressing it on the Admiralty during 1914, 1915, 1916 and 1917. It was only in November, 1917, that a sincere individual with common sense arose in the Admiralty and pointed out the enormous risk we were running. Then pay plus pension was given to all those who were serving and eligible for pension. The anxiety to please was such that not only did they give it, but they made it retrospective to August, 1914. Would that such a man would arise now in the Admiralty and do his duty in the same way. It is to be remembered that naval ratings enjoy this marriage allowance. The Army have it and the Air Force have it; but it is denied to the naval officer and no legitimate reason of which I have ever heard has been given for that denial. The naval officer does not receive any children's allowance and remember that he has always to keep up two establishments. Are his wife and children to suffer? The children are not even given that two shillings' weekly allowance of which we have heard so much in this House. Of course it is absolutely insufficient, but the naval officer's children do not even get that although these men are serving their country in a very special manner.
The pay of the naval officer has just been cut by between 6 per cent. and 7 per cent., but I do not think that his expenses are diminished by as much as a quarter of one per cent. I believe the cost of living has dropped a point or two recently and the reason stated in "The Times" is that there has been a reduction in the price of eggs. That is of great interest to the poorly paid naval officer and his wife and children. His house
rent, his household expenses, the school fees of his children, doctors bills, the maintenance of two establishments, the cost of his different uniforms—their name is legion and they are for the most part covered with costly gold lace—the expenses of his mess—unlike the Army officer he has to pay mess expenses except in very rare instances even if he lives at home—all these items have to be considered. Again, half pay is much more frequent in the Navy than in the sister service and operates for much longer periods. The naval officer gets no married quarters and gets practically no assisted passages for his wife. There can be no valid reason why the naval officer should be treated worse than his brethen in the sister service. The reason given is finance but that is a hollow reason. I will not say it is untrue but it is not exact. If the naval officer were paid according to his deserts, according to what he represents, according to what he is worth to this country and the Empire, the Front Bench would have to look to its pay sheet, and to its laurels.

Major-General Sir JOHN DAVIDSON: I beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Sir B. Falle) has covered the ground generally in presenting the case for this Motion to the House and there are matters of detail which I understand my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Epsom (Commander Southby) intends to put forward in relation to the pay of the respective Services. I take particular pleasure in seconding this Motion from a personal point of view. I have been for most of my life in the Army and, in the past, I have drawn the equivalent to this allowance, namely, separation allowance, and I cannot for the life of me see why the naval officer should not draw it in the same way as the Army or Air Force officer. To my mind it is purely a question of equity as between the three Services. If the lower ranks in the Navy get it and if the whole of the Army and Air Force get it, why select one particular class and exclude that class from the benefits of the allowance? I think that in this matter naval officers are suffering a great hardship and the sense of grievance which is felt on this matter is quite justifiable.
I am also delighted to second this Motion because I, perhaps more than any other Member of this House, come in contact with these people owing to the fact that I represent a Division which includes the whole of the suburbs of Portsmouth and the surrounding country districts. I can say without exaggeration that the whole of my constituency is strewn with these naval grass widows. I see them frequently from one week-end to another and I feel a great sense of responsibility in this matter. I am always delighted to see them; they are very charming people but I feel extremely sorry for them when I realise that they are suffering hardships which ought not to be imposed on them. One sees there a very large number of these people with their families, their husbands being in the Mediterranean or on the China station or elsewhere and, as my hon. Friend the Mover has pointed out, each family has to keep up two establishments. This involves considerable expense and since the War, notwithstanding pay increases, the cost of living is very much greater. I think the difficulty of living in a decent manner has been very much increased since the War.
Ever since I have been in this House I have consistently advocated that something should be done towards the coordination of the throe Services. I recognise that this is not the proper time to discuss the subject, but I believe that a measure of real effective co-ordination is not very far off. It distresses me to see this lack of uniformity, this inequality, in dealing with such important matters as pay, pensions and allowances, still existing between the three services. I cannot understand why the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry have not taken up this matter before because when two classes of people serving beside each other find themselves treated differently in these respects, without any explanation or excuse whatever being given, then grievances are bound to arise. As I have said, this is a very real grievance; it has been mentioned, I think, that this question was before the House a few years ago, but when the Estimates were before the House, and the question of the marriage allowance was raised the issue was confused. To-night the issue is not confused. It is a perfectly plain and simple
problem; it is simply a question of whether these naval officers are to be treated in the same manner as the rest of the Services, and as this is to be left to a free Vote of the House, I trust it will be given to-night unanimously in favour of the Motion.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Like the two hon. Members who have so ably advocated this proposal, I can say that this is not the first occasion on which I have raised my voice in the House to support this plea. When I first came into the House I found that this question was exciting a great deal of interest. It was raised almost every week and the Government of the day always said that the matter was under consideration. Eventually the hon. Gentleman who is now the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty had the privilege of announcing that a committee had been set up under a distinguished Admiral to inquire into the matter. That was the Goodenough Committee. There was another Admiral and two paymaster-captains on the committee. They made a full investigation. All sorts of claims had been put forward; some had been rebutted, and it was the business of the Committee to ascertain the facts and put the Government in possession of those facts. Their inquiries were prolonged and thorough; they called evidence from every possible quarter; they examined the budgets of naval officers and inquired into the conditions under which officers' wives were living and officers' children were being educated. After a year they presented a report which recommended that these allowances ought not in justice to be withheld any longer, but ought to be paid to married officers in the Navy in exactly the same way as to married officers of the Army or Air Force. The Admiralty accepted the report and inserted in the Navy Estimates of 1925 a proposal to spend £350,000 upon these allowances. From every quarter of the House support was forthcoming, and the proposal was carried unanimously, with great rejoicing, as might have been expected, in the homes of naval officers when they thought that at long last justice had been done.
That was in March, 1925. Then the coal trouble arose, This House was asked to vote £20,000,000 as a subsidy
for the mines, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a moment of panic, decided to sacrifice this paltry little sum of £350,000, which was going to be paid to the officers' wives in the Navy, in order to help the taxpayers out of their difficulty. It was a very sorry blow, but it is no good re-opening the merits of the case. The merits of the case have already been decided. They were decided by the Goodenough Committee, and although the honour of announcing the recommendation of that Committee fell to a Conservative First Lord of the Admiralty, an ex-Financial Secretary to the Admiralty who belonged to the Socialist party was quick to point out that the credit was really his. This is what the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty said on that occasion, and that is why I await his speech this evening, on behalf of the naval officers, with so much confidence and assurance:
We can also feel some satisfaction that the present Government are pursuing a policy with regard to marriage allowances for naval officers which the last Government took. They appointed the Goodenough Committee, which, I understand, has reported favourably to the Admiralty, and from the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman to-night the Admiralty have decided to press it upon the Treasury, and in so far as this is concerned, he has the support of this party, which initiated it and will be glad to see it carried through."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th March, 1925; col. 2626, Vol. 181.]
That was five years ago. The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty has had to possess himself in patience for five years. He has persevered, he has struggled, he has waited, and at last he finds himself in the same position again, in a position to carry out, on behalf of his party, what he said he would be so anxious to carry out in the year 1925. That is why I have faith that he will say to-night exactly what he said in 1925, namely, that it is the policy of his party to give these allowances to naval officers.
My hon. Friends who have preceded me have spoken, the one with great vivacity, the other with deep feeling, and have put forward all the arguments with which the House is so well acquainted, so that it is hardly necessary for me to repeat that the naval officer, unlike the Army officer, has to keep up two homes, and very frequently more than two homes. Owing to the vicissitudes of the Service, he is moved constantly from one port to
another port. He has taken the lease of a house, and made arrangements for his children to go to school." He has to sacrifice the lease for what it will fetch, and establish his home elsewhere. Frequently he cannot get rid of the lease, and there have been cases where naval officers have been saddled with three leases, while everybody knows that the rents in naval ports are very much higher than they are elsewhere, because the naval officer has to live there, and those who let the accommodation know that very well. He has to educate his children, not as the civilian has to educate them, because he cannot send them to a day school, owing to the uncertainty of his stabilisation in any particular spot; he must send them to a boarding school.
Exactly the same applies to the officer promoted from the lower deck. We want to democratise the Navy to some extent, and to lay it open to all sections of the community. The man who is promoted from the lower deck to-day has a harder task than he should have, because while he is on the lower deck he gets a marriage allowance, but the moment his ability is recognised, he loses his marriage allowance, and although he may get as much pay as, but no more than, he got when he was a petty officer, he has to keep up a higher status with that pay, although it is not increased in the initial stages of his career as an officer. If we want to draw the Navy from a wider section of the community, we must allow the same principle to apply to officers as applies on the lower deck, and we must allow the marriage allowance to continue. I have said enough to show that there is a really substantial case in this.
There is only one further anomaly to which I wish to call attention. On an aircraft carrier you have a young Air Force officer drawing more pay than a young Naval officer. He is married, and he gets a marriage allowance as well. It is not taken into account for Income Tax; it is free of Income Tax. He is working side by side with a young Naval officer, who is also married. There is absolutely no difference in the type of duty they are executing, but you pay a marriage allowance to one and withhold it from the other. As I have said, the Government is already committed, through the mouth of the Financial
Secretary to the Admiralty, to carry this into operation. Therefore, I need not argue with any greater force. I am sure we shall have a favourable announcement this evening. It would be a very happy concomitant to the Naval Conference. In the Naval Conference we are concerned with the numbers and sizes of ships. Tonight we are concerned with those who man the ships, and I hope this House will show the delegates of the various Powers to the Naval Conference that we are not only concerned with the first aspect of the problem, but that we are also prepared to look after the Navy, who look after us.

Commander SOUTHBY: I have no desire to occupy the time of this House to any great extent, and indeed much that I would like to have said has been most ably said already, and naval officers in general will be very grateful to the hon. Members who have preceded me. I have some diffidence in rising to address the House on this subject, because I am a naval officer, and it might perhaps seem as if I were a biased person, but at the same time the officers of the Service to which I have the honour to belong are in the main entirely inarticulate so far as putting their views before the country is concerned. It is impossible for any officer on the active list to state his views on this subject, and, therefore, I feel that on me devolves the duty, which I shall do my best to discharge, to put the views of the naval officers before this House.
This House has always, throughout its honourable history, been keen and ready to remedy injustices, and this is a matter of pure justice to a body of men who have not up to date received it. I do not believe that if hon. Members, on whatever side they may sit, really understood the facts—and I hope that now, from the speeches of those who have preceded me, they do fully understand the facts—they would do anything but vote, if there should be a Division, for this injustice to be remedied. I do not presume to say that my own party has been altogether blameless in the matter. The pre-War rates of pay to the naval officer were low. The rates of pay in the Navy have always been low throughout the history of the Navy. Before the War a lieutenant got 10s. a day, a commander got £1 a day, and it might reasonably be supposed that
he might wish to marry. In those days there was no question of a marriage allowance. After the War, in 1921, the whole of this question of marriage allowances was discussed, and it was shelved then owing to the financial conditions, with the proviso that it should be brought up again in 1924. We have heard from the last speaker that it was brought up again, and we have heard what happened.
I do not think hon. Members realise the extraordinary discrepancies between the condition of the naval officer and that of the army officer. The naval officer has to keep up two establishments. It is far cheaper for a man to live in a home with his wife and family. The army officer lives in a house with his wife and family, he is paid a marriage allowance to help him keep up his home, and so much does the War Office realise the necessity for paying a man with a wife and family a little more that if that army officer is taken away from his home, he is paid an extra allowance while he is away. If he is given accommodation allowance and lodging allowance while he is away, he still continues to draw it for his home. Not so in the Navy. The naval officer may have to live abroad. He has to keep up a home in this country, and if he wishes to have his wife and family out to the station he is on, he has to pay for their passage. The army officer gets an assisted passage, and his wife and family go out to him free.
Another point worth considering is that the naval officer has many moves, and, therefore, his expenses in moving his home are very great. I have had some experience of it myself, so that I know what I am talking about. The army officer has relatively fewer moves, and, therefore, his expenses in moving are a great deal less. I have heard the argument put forward, as being one of the reasons why the naval officer does not get a marriage allowance, that the rates of his pay are so high that they really include the marriage allowance which is paid to the army officer and the air force officer, but if that be so, there still remains an injustice, because the army officer pays no Income Tax on his marriage allowance and his special allowance, nor are those allowances subject to triennial reduction, but the naval officer
does pay Income Tax on the whole of his pay, and his pay is also subject to triennial reduction, so that if included in his pay is some measure of marriage allowance or some equivalent marriage allowance, he is still unfairly treated, in that he pays tax on it, whereas the army officer does not. When the naval rates of pay were fixed in 1919 it was assumed that the army rates, which contemplated a marriage allowance in addition, would not be fixed at such a rate as to place the army in a Letter position than the navy.
I cannot help thinking that the Coordinating Committee really let themselves be unduly influenced also by the suggestion that some naval officers reach higher ranks at younger ages than army officers. It is true that that is so, but at the same time they reach responsibility at a relatively younger age than in the Army. If you take the actual figures of pay for two ranks, a lieutenant-commander, who ranks with a major, is relatively a younger man, but if you take a senior lieutenant-commander at the age of 36 and compare him with a junior major of 37, you find an enormous discrepancy in their pay. The 1919 standard rate of pay for a lien tenant commander is £620 a year, and in addition his 1929 victualling or ration allowance is £24 a year, or £644 altogether. The junior major of 37 gets £574 as his standard rate of pay, plus a victualling and ration allowance of £28, and in addition he gets a marriage allowance, which with furniture, lodging, fuel, and also servant allowance, totals up to £209, making a total of £812, as against the £644 of the senior lieutenant-commander, who is senior to him in service rink, although about the same age. In addition to that, there is the anomaly of the married army officer who is separated from his family and who gets an additional allowance of about £78, so that he would have in all, if separated from his family, £890, as against the £644 of the naval lieutenant-commander, who would be keeping up another establishment at home in addition to his expenses in his mess in his ship.
The Army have this marriage allowance, the Air Force have this marriage allowance, and the naval ratings on the lower deck have this marriage allowance. In common justice, what is the reason for withholding it from the married naval
officer? If anybody is deserving of this marriage allowance, surely it is a man who seldom sees his wife and family, who may be sent at a moment's notice to China and come back, as I have known in several cases, to this country with just three weeks' leave, and then be sent off to the Mediterranean. Surely he is deserving of this small measure of help from the House of Commons which he has learned to trust. I have asked questions in this House in which I have suggested that if, like Pharaoh, the right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite harden their hearts, and cannot see their way to give this allowance, at least they might stabilise the pay of the naval officer at its present level, so that he should not have the fear of the future cuts that must come under the present regulations. That would be something—half a loaf is better than no bread—but it would be a very small penny bun compared with the whole loaf which a naval officer would get if he received justice.
There are several other advantages which the army officer gets over the naval officer. For example, he gets free medical attention for his family. That does not apply to the naval officer. He has to pay the doctor's bill for his wife and family, who may be left at home while he is abroad. In no circumstances does he get free medical treatment for them, although he may be living in the same dockyard port as his family. The army officer can call in an army doctor and get treatment. It used to be said that no naval officer under the rank of admiral had a wife who was recognised. The naval officer's wife is not recognised by the provision of married quarters, so he has always to pay for his home accommodation. If it is argued that the naval officer's pay is such that it counterbalances the amount of advantage which an army officer has over him, I submit that that entirely falls to the ground, because obviously the home expenses for the one must be much greater than the home expenses for the other.
This is one of those occasions upon which the House can regard the question as a non-party question, on which all sides of the House can unite to remedy one of those things for which the House exists, namely, injustice perpetrated in
anyway upon any people in this country, whether they serve His Majesty in the Navy, Army or Air Force, or serve the nation in any shape or form. I beg the Financial Secretary to hold out some hope to the naval officer that he may feel that at long last this grave injustice will be remedied by a vote of the whole House irrespective of party.

Major Sir HERBERT CAYZER: I feel that I must support my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Sir B. Falle), and add my voice in urging the rectification of this grievance, being, as I am, one of the members for our great naval port of Portsmouth. It has always appeared to me an anomaly that the Army and the Air Force should give this allowance to their officers, but that the Navy should not. I know that people will say, "Probably it will not make an officer so efficient if he gets the marriage allowance." Before the War, a subaltern was not generally supposed to marry; it was supposed to be bad for the regiment, and many regiments would not have it. Now that that is all done away with, and there are marriage allowances in the Army and Air Force, it is an anomaly that it should not be given in the Navy, I hope and believe that hon. Members opposite will vote for this allowance, because they believe that, when a man becomes unemployed, he should get sufficient money given to him to keep not only himself, but also his wife and children. The same argument applies with a great deal more force to people serving in the British Navy.
As a business man, I have always, found that it pays well to make people happy and content, and to get rid of any possible grievance; although it may be only a little thing, it grows and rankles. I do not say for an instant that it affects the efficiency of the naval officer because he has this grievance, for we all know that the Navy is a sound; service, and that the officers will do their duty whether this grievance is' rectified or not, but the granting of this allowance will remove a grievance which is rankling there the whole time, and cannot be for the good of the Service. It is not as if it would involve the vote of a large sum, for it is only a paltry sum, as sums go now, of £350,000. If it will put the Navy on a par with the
Army and the Air Force, it is only right that this House should take the first opportunity of remedying this grievance. It seems extraordinary that when a man is promoted he actually becomes worse off than he was when he was in the lower ranks, because his marriage allowance ceases. I hope that the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty will see his way to urge that this anomaly should be put right, and to get the Navy put on all fours with the other Services.

Mr. SHILLAKER: One listened with a large amount of interest to the remarks made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, for they show that the number of sins of omission and commission of the late Government which this Government are asked to remedy are beyond count. I am one of those who agree with hon. Gentlemen opposite that the naval officer should have this allowance. There is no logical argument against it, for the Army and Air Force have it, and the Navy should have it. I hope that it may be possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, upon the recommendation of the Financial Secretary, to allow this £350,000 to be paid. It may not be easy, with all the demands that have been put on the Exchequer by recent legislation, and that will be put on in legislation which we hope to bring in in the next twelve months, but it will be easy to do it if we scrap one battleship. Battleships are unnecessary; they are no good for offence or defence. It costs £8,000,000 to build one, and by scrapping one we can easily get the £350,000 which the naval officers are entitled to receive.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: As one who has served in a sister Service to the Royal Navy in a comparatively junior rank, I would like to support this proposal, because I have seen the hardships which have been put upon naval officers working side by side with officers in the Royal Air Force and the Army. There is only one thing in the Debate which I regret, and that is the comparison which the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore-Belisha) made with regard to the flying officer on an aircraft carrier. I regret it, because comparisons are thoroughly odious in services where the
pay is inadequate all through, and because nobody would grudge the money which the flying officer gets for the risks which he takes.
One point which has not been touched on is the position which an officer is forced to keep up. It would be very easy to say, Why should an officer get so much pay when somebody else in another walk of life is not getting anything like that amount? When, however, the position which an officer has to keep up is taken into account, it will be seen that the pay is far from munificent. There has been a suggestion that certain Cabinet Ministers should be paid higher salaries, and that is an assumption that certain people in an official position have to keep up that position, and must be given money to allow them to do it. In the Navy we handicap officers who have to keep up their position, and naval officers, who have wives and families to keep, find that it is impossible for them to keep up their position with the means at their disposal.
There is an added reason for reviewing this matter at the present time. It is that a certain percentage of pay is subject to reduction owing to the cost of living. I have never been able to make out why on one day in the newspapers we read that, owing to a reduction in the cost of living, the pay of Army, Navy and Air Force officers is to be reduced on a certain date, and in the same paper that, owing to the increase in the cost of living, certain civil servants' wages are to go up. The present situation has grown up in the past partly owing to the attitude which I, having close relations in the Navy, know exist—the attitude of the Admiralty and certain senior officers, which is to discourage young officers from getting married. These times have passed, and the more young officers are married, the better for this country. The more young marriages we have in every section of life, particularly in the Service sections, which have been the backbone of the past, the more we are ensuring the future of this country. Family life is something of which we are very proud, and which we should do everything in our private and official capacities to encourage in every way possible.
The old senior officers' attitude was that the ship was the young officer's wife, and that he should be married to the Service. There is no comparison there at all, because the ship would make a very hard wife. It gets you up very early in the morning, and to be married to the Service would mean that the husband would be receiving a pension from the wife, but I have never known a case like that. Here we are trying to get a pension which will enable the husband to keep his wife in the way that he should be able to do—an allowance which will enable him to keep his family in that state in which he has to keep them owing to his official position, a state in which his brother officers in the other services are keeping them, although with a
struggle. We are trying to remove a penalty under which the naval officer has been suffering, a penalty which I am sorry to say the last Government did not remove. It is never too late to mend, and I hope to-night, when we hear the statement of the hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, that the grievance of the past will be removed, and we should welcome that statement for the sake of those officers.

Mr. SANDERS rose—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

The House was adjourned at Two Minutes after Eight o'Clock until To-morrow.